Rain, pounding hard on the greenhouse roof.
Inside, silence.
It is a cold day. Colder than any I have experienced through seven years at Hogwarts. My defenses have been stripped away this year, and there is nothing left to help me cope with this, my greatest loss.
Nothing but the boy in front of me.
Our eyes are fixed on each other. They tunnel deep, into the other's mind, into our darkest parts, seeing what cannot be seen. And we are one. I know Neville as no one else has – his secrets and wishes and what he will someday become – and he knows me – my past and my demons and my fragile hopes, parts of me that even I cannot see clearly through the shadows that threaten to engulf me.
I blink, breaking the stare, and we melt into each other seamlessly by some unspoken agreement. As the rain washes over everything, he holds me. Sometimes stroking my hair, untangling the locks that I have paid little attention to in the last few weeks. Sometimes saying my name, repeating it softly over and over in the quiet like a litany. Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.
For hours we are wrapped in each other. The words keep replaying in my head – your mother has been found dead – until he chases them away with my name. Hannah. I try to think of other things, but my mind keeps returning to the present. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's new regime. The hours spent in Muggle Studies listening to lectures about how filthy and destructive and foolish nonmagical people are. The nights in the Room of Requirement, terrified of what would happen if our meetings were discovered. The fact that my mother, my best friend, is no longer breathing.
And the boy in this greenhouse with me.
I would not be alive if it were not for his friendship. No, his love. He is the only one who has ever told me that I look beautiful, the only one who does not see me as just another Hufflepuff girl, the only one who has kissed me and told me to never give up. And he would not have done many of the things he has done this year were it not for my encouragement, my cheering him on, telling him to believe in himself. We have been each others' saviors this year, this hellish, frightening year.
We sit and we breathe together, inhale and then exhale, inhale and then exhale. We are broken, but we hold each other together. I do not know how the time passes – whether it is sluggish or like quicksand this evening, for now it seems to stand still.
Breathe.
Heal.
This is where we belong – together, in each others' arms, hearts beating as one.
As the rain washes over everything, I allow myself to believe, to see a small ray of hope emerging in my life. There have been so many losses and so much suffering. But maybe we can grow back together.
I smile – a tiny smile, but the first one in a multitude of days – and so does he. He whispers, "We're going to be okay, Hannah. We really are," and I reply, "I know we are."
Because you have me and I have you.
No matter what happens, we will carry on.