AN: This is for the Quidditch Fanfiction League, Round 6. I have to use a lesser known genre, and I picked spiritual.
As soon as he was old enough to go into Hogsmeade, Neville Longbottom would go to the little chapel every Sunday.
"But you're a wizard!" Most people would protest when they'd hear of this. "That stupid Bible discriminates against our kind, and calls us demons. We are not meant to be Christian."
Neville would always stammer some sort of lame response in reply, but the secret was he wasn't sure he entirely believed that part. Besides, if magic was a sin, wasn't he somewhat covered with Jesus dying on the cross for him and all of humankind. Besides, he felt. Who would want to eternally damn a race that can't control who/what they are?
His grandmother had gotten him into it. Ever since he could remember, Neville had been dragged down to the church for services every weekend.
"I want you to have something to believe in when all hope is gone," Mrs. Longbottom would say, before blowing her nose in a handkerchief, whenever Neville protested getting into that stiff suit and being forced to sit down and shut up. He'd always feel guilty whenever she said it, too, since he knew what she was referring to.
Neville knew that his mother and father had been devoutly Christian, too. He was told stories of how his father and mother met in the Hogsmeade chapel's choir, a Slytherin and Hufflepuff, the best of friends ever since then. They'd loved their faith, he was told once by the preacher in the church. The only thing for a long time that they loved more was each other, but eventually, it was him, Neville, when he was born.
Neville believed that his parents had passed to heaven before their bodies could go. He knew they were really alive, but they were insane, dead inside, really. He believed whenever his mother gave him a wrapper, or his father repeated that one word- "proud" over and over again, that his parents' angels were visiting him. It was hard to make contact, but they did, because they loved him the most of anyone in the world.
The hardest part of the whole thing when in his third year he accidentally let Sirius Black into the Gryffindor common room, was not the howler from his grandmother. It wasn't being banned from his own house, his own bed. It wasn't even the disgraceful looks given to him by everyone in Gryffindor, reminding him yet again that he didn't belong. It was being banned from Hogsmeade, being banned from the one place where he could turn to amongst all the turmoil and trouble in his life. The rest I could deal with if I were just allowed down to the church, Neville reasoned. Now it was ten time harder, knowing that he had no safe place to go, where he could be himself, and no one would give a damn.
He sat glumly in the library window-seat, looking outside Sunday morning. All of a friends were out at Hogsmeade. He couldn't go to church, something that had never really happened before when he needed it. Mrs. Longbottom insisted that praying and such only be done in true need and in a church. Neville had neither. He felt like those stupid birds of death floating around.
"Why are you looking so glum?" A fey-like voice called.
Neville looked to see a girl with the stars in her silver eyes, and dirty-blonde curls that were wild and free. She was wearing all sorts of trinkets as jewelry, and wore bright, multi-color robes. She looked like an angel fallen from Heaven.
"I was banned from Hogsmeade." Neville answered, and he looked out the window again.
"Oh, that's right, you're Neville Longbottom." The girl said, taking a seat next to him. "I heard about what happened. I know it can be hard to get into the common rooms sometimes. The Ravenclaw common room often traps people outside of it."
"Who are you?" Neville asked.
"I'm Luna Lovegood." The girl said, in her mythical voice. She was ethereal, divine. How could she be real?
"Nice to meet you." Neville said.
"I understand that your so-called friends haven't been very pleasant about this." Luna continued, after an awkward silence.
"They have reason." He muttered.
"Oh, I'm sure they do," she said. "But you shouldn't have to deal with all that you have to. An emotionally abusive grandmother, cruel teachers, a beat-up old wand, and being in the house that thinks of you as an outcast." She looked down at her bare feet. "I'm the outcast, too, you know. But I manage because I have faith."
She looked up, in wild, merry delight. "I have faith in Him, that He died on the cross for our sins, so we could live. And I believe that He is listening up there, watching over all of us. I believe that He loves us all and lives in every single one of us, and that He wants to help us."
Neville shook his head. "I've been banned from stepping foot in Hogsmeade, where the church is, so-"
"Silly boy," Luna interrupted. "Who said Christianity and faith was about church?"
"My grandmother." He said sheepishly.
"Come on, let me show you something." Luna said, taking his hand. He followed the earthen angel willingly. She flew almost up to the Astronomy Tower, and stood on top, amidst the falling snow, not even seeming slightly chilled for a moment.
"You don't need to be in a church to talk to Him," Luna said, as she perched on the railing fearlessly. "He's watching and listening everywhere. He'll really listen, though, if you are admiring his work, his everyday miracles."
Neville now saw the beauty in each and every snowflake.
"Go on, talk to him." Luna urged.
Neville shouted out to the blizzard every problem he'd encountered, how he didn't fit in, and how he doubted he'd ever fit in with the rest of God's creatures, and how he felt hopeless. By the end, though, he felt better, and didn't feel cold at all.
Luna only raised an eyebrow. "God bless the outcasts." She said softly.