Title: You've Got Stars in Your Eyes
Author: Summerskies/Hazelmist
Summary: The war is raging and the few remaining students at Hogwarts are getting closer and under each other's skin. In the wake of an argument, Neville Longbottom pursues an angry Ginny Weasley to the Room of Requirement, but what he finds there is unexpected.
Rating: G
Pairing: Neville/Ginny
Disclaimer: I wish I owned it.
Author's Note(s): Just a cute little N/G piece that I wrote in response to a challenge. After watching GOF I became a huge fan of their ship, even if it isn't canon.

Neville lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Moonlight streamed in through the open window, draping the Seventh Year Boy's Dormitory in an eerie light. The other four beds were empty. Harry and Ron (along with Hermione), disappeared shortly after the tragedy culminating their sixth year. Seamus was taken out of school immediately following Dumbledore's funeral and never returned. Dean, by some miracle hid all evidence of danger and darkness from his muggle mother, and was Neville's sole roommate for the past six months. It was part of the reason why Neville was still wide awake even as the clock chimed for the twelfth time.

Distant voices were carried up from the common room to his waiting ears. Neville, though he tried not too, was listening intently to the muffled argument. He couldn't follow them, but he correctly identified the voices as belonging to Dean and Lavender Brown as well as his close friend Ginny Weasley. The voices grew in volume, until the argument climaxed with a deafening BANG!

Neville bolted upright, his hand immediately grabbing his wand. He strained his ears, but it was suspiciously silent. Fumbling around in the dark, tripping over his trunk and knocking over Dean's books, Neville finally located his shoes. He stumbled out of the Dormitory, clumsily descending the stairs leading to the Common Room.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

The hex was poorly aimed, missing him by several feet, but it drew his attention to the couple sitting on the couch.

"Oh, it's you," Lavender Brown grumbled, pocketing her wand. She dropped her head onto Dean's chest, and Dean's arm returned to her shoulders.

"I heard shouting." Neville wondered if it had merely been his imagination, since Ginny was nowhere to be found.

"Of course, Ginny probably woke the whole castle up," Dean growled.

"Is she okay?"

"That girl's got some serious issues."

Neville's blood boiled. Dean and Lavender had obviously said something provocative to her.

"Where is she?" he asked, fighting back the urge to throw the hex right back at Lavender.

"She left." Dean shrugged, pointing to the portrait.

Neville hurried past them. In his haste, he got his foot stuck in the portrait, but the other two were so used to it that neither of them laughed or attempted to help him free it. Neville tried again, and this time successfully closed the portrait without losing a limb.

Over the past few months, the remaining students had gotten to know each other extremely well. Dean and Lavender were disgusting everyone with their mushy antics, which made their previous relationships look cold and chaste. Ginny, Neville and Luna became best friends. But the war, which had taken a fatal turn, couldn't be ignored. Everyone was getting under each other's skin. Dean and Lavender had their first fight (which lasted a measly five minutes), Luna was withdrawing from reality, and Ginny was moody and quarrelsome.

Neville sighed. He had a strong feeling that he knew where she was. Unintentionally he had become a keen observer of the people around him, particularly Ginny. While Luna's sanity had declined, Ginny had fought to hold everything together, and clumsy and bumbling Neville, stood by her, helping her by lending an ear and looking out for her. He'd done all he could for her, and Ginny in return had brightened the dark world that they were living in. With a rare smile, she could light up the room, and her elusive laughter made Neville's spirits rise at the mere thought of that glorious sound.

Neville stopped in his tracks, looking at a seemingly ordinary part of the wall. He pressed his hand lightly against the cool stone. The Room of Requirement had once served as a home to the D.A., and recently a workshop for Draco Malfoy. Death Eaters had been brought in through a vanishing cabinet, and Neville, Ginny and Ron had been thrown back by blackness, helplessly listening as a deadly army entered their fortress. The cabinet had been destroyed, and the room had long been forgotten by everyone, except for Ginny who frequented it. Perhaps she felt that it connected her in some way to her long lost friends because she haunted the room, sometimes bringing Neville and Luna along. He knew she was in there, but now, as he stood outside nervously rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, he wondered if he should just leave her be.

Neville recalled the bang that had sent him running, and without a second thought he entered. He was unprepared for the sight that met him. Instead of the old D.A. room, he found his eyes struggling to adjust to the light. When they finally did, his jaw dropped. Acres of rolling green grass stretched out before him, bathed in the light of a life size full moon. The grass swayed in a breeze that he could almost feel, and further down Neville noticed the glitter of the moon reflecting off of a rippling pond. In awe, Neville wandered toward the pool. Crickets chirped, and far away in the distance a bird sang, but there was no sign of Ginny.

Neville was getting nervous. Perhaps it wasn't Ginny who was here. Maybe this was a trap. He pulled out his wand, suddenly alert. A tree materialized not too far from where he was standing. Neville walked determinedly towards it, knowing that it was Ginny, or an intruder waiting for him beneath its spreading branches.

He was prepared for anything, anything except for this.

When he saw her, his breath caught, his heart turning over in his throat.

Beneath the old Willow, Ginny was sprawled out on her back, surrounded by pieces of her broken broomstick. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving.

"Ginny!" Neville broke into a run. He couldn't breathe, even as he knelt down beside her motionless form. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him. "Ginny!" His voice cracked, his eyes blurring, and then, her beautiful brown eyes opened.

"Hi," she said, looking up at him. Her face struggled to form a smile, but failed miserably.

Neville's eyes refocused. His voice, though unsteady, managed to return the soft greeting.

"Hi."

He stared at her, searching her dark eyes silently for the words that she was keeping inside. There was no pain and Neville felt hopeful.

"Are you alright?" he asked hesitantly, eyeing the splinters of wood that were scattered around her.

"Fine," Ginny said flatly, but Neville knew that though physically she may have been, emotionally, she was not. Ginny must have noticed him, scanning her worriedly, because with a roll of her eyes, she reached up and grabbed his shoulder. Neville, caught off guard, almost toppled forward onto her chest, but realized what she was doing. He took her arm, slinging it around his neck, and gently helped her sit up against the tree.

Neville's hand lingered on hers. It felt so natural, her arm around his neck, his hand on hers, but this wasn't a friend thing. Blushing furiously he let go and as Ginny replaced her hands in her lap, he could've sworn that her face was a shade of pink.

"What happened?" He forced himself to change the subject, to overcome this moment of awkwardness.

"I wanted to go flying, but because of the new wards they put up, I couldn't get to the pitch. So I came here and…" she trailed off, her eyes moving from him to the enchanted pool that she had created.

Neville watched her freckled porcelain face, blank, emotionless and empty. But her eyes flickered, and changed, even as she worked so hard to maintain the coolness and the indifferent expression. He could almost see a strand of her red hair moving slightly in a nonexistent breeze, that Ginny, such a gifted young witch, seemed to be channeling her energy into. He waited patiently, leaning back against the tree so that his shoulder brushed hers, just letting her know that he was here, waiting for her to speak if she had to.

Several minutes passed, or perhaps it had been hours, Neville wasn't sure, but suddenly the girl drew in a sharp breath, and abruptly turned those brown eyes upon him.

"I fell," she whispered.

"I've been flying since I was six Neville, breaking into the broom shed when no one was looking. I taught myself how to fly. I made the Quidditch team three years in a row, and I've caught the snitch, scored more goals than Ron's saved and won the house cup. But today, I come out here, with no Slytherins, no pressure, no quaffle, no team mates, no barriers and I start thinking, and suddenly I'm falling." She looked at him, as if waiting for a response, but Neville didn't know what to say.

"I fell, I don't understand why…" She drew her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees.

She looked so small and vulnerable as she tried to comprehend this trivial incident, which seemed so petty in comparison to the war that was raging outside of this room. Neville saw through the words though, he knew why she had fallen, what she was really trying to say, and that all of this symbolized Ginny's own inner turmoil as she tried to cope with the world that was slowly crumbling around her. The broomstick had been the last straw. She was losing hope, fading fast. Luna was fleeing to her fantasy world, Lavender and Dean had dove into a relationship, Harry, Ron and Hermione had ran off to meet their deaths, and Ginny, here she was left behind, seemingly abandoned, with no one except for…Neville. But she couldn't see that? Was he that unimportant to her, that it didn't matter that he had in fact followed her, and was now sitting beside her, intently listening?

"Ginny, I don't know how you did it, but this, this isn't real. It's not the air, it's not the same as flying outside, it's missing an element." He struggled to reach her, answering a question which he knew was supposed to be rhetorical, and was in effect, unanswerable. But Neville had to let her know that he was here, he couldn't let her go. He'd lost his closest friends, even though he'd been the keen observer, the one who knew long before they stumbled that they were going to fall. He and Ginny had both let Luna slip between their fingers, and realized too late what had happened to their best friend. Ginny was still here though, he still had one more chance to turn the tables, to redeem himself.

"It is missing something," Ginny murmured. "But what?"

Neville thought hard and long, knowing that everything he lived for depended on it. The sun rose and fell with Ginny, she was the center of his small universe, the one who kept him sane and supported him when he grew weak. He studied the rippling waters, the moonlight dancing across their surface. And then slowly he lifted his head, peering up through the branches at the empty tapestry above. He smiled, and in that moment, everything clicked.

"Aureoralis," he whispered with a flick of his wand.

Immediately the sky was filled with stars, hundreds and millions and billions of winking stars.

"Stars," Ginny whispered, marveling at the beauty of this simple spell. Her eyes were teary and her mouth lay half open. She turned to Neville stunned that he was capable of producing this kind of wonder.

"Neville, how'd you know?"

"I know a lot about you Ginny," he whispered, finding it mysteriously necessary to brush a strand of her beautiful red hair away from her eyes. His hand lingered, tracing her cheek. Ginny grabbed his shirt, pulling him down. She kissed him, and suddenly there were stars everywhere. Shooting stars, red stars, gold stars, spinning stars, stars that reminded him of the fireworks that her twin brothers had once set off all over the school. He couldn't see anything but stars even after they pulled away. There were stars in her eyes… yes, even Ginny, looked pleasantly surprised by this turn of events. She laid her head on his shoulder, smiling.

"You've got to teach me that," she said finally pointing up at the stars that were more than just mere celestial objects but symbols of something more.

"I will," he promised, tightening his arm around her and resting his chin on her soft hair.

And he did.

A/N: I was going through some of my old stuff, and I really like this piece for some odd reason. Tell me what you think, even if you aren't a fan.