A/N: Plot bunnies. I has them. And no, none of these characters belong to me. You're on the wrong site if you think they do.
The Great Hall is still alive tonight, despite everything, another end-of-term feast attended by victors, corpses and debris. Neville sits at the center of all the confusion and muses on this as he glances around, looking for friends, family, classmates, reassuring himself that they're still alive, despite everything. It's a bittersweet feeling, he thinks, being the great big hero of such a battle. Everyone presses in on him now, wanting to know his story, searching for a little bit of comfort and joy despite all they've lost tonight, but Neville is hard-pressed to give what he craves for himself. He does his best, telling and retelling the story of Nagini until the words grow meaningless in his mouth, like the taste of Butterbeer it's gone cold, and, instead of focusing on the story and his flocks of admirers, he begins to long for the company of people he is actually close to. Like Harry, Ron, and Hermionie.
Almost without meaning to, his eyes begin to wander, searching through the crowded hall desperately celebrating to delay the sorrow to come. Harry is nowhere to be seen- probably buried in a swarm of admirers like he is- but Hermionie and Ron are seated a few seats away, her head on his shoulder. Neville froze, feeling like he just ran into a brick wall. He supposed they'd all been expecting it eventually- he, Seamus, and Dean even had a pool going at one point- but somehow it was different, seeing Ron and Hermionie actually together, one actually leaning their head on the other's actual shoulder. It made a difference to Neville, anyways. He supposed he'd been a little fond of her himself.
Well, that was a lie. He'd had a raging prepubescent crush on her since he was too young to understand, since he'd abandoned her after she went to such great lengths to find his toad and she'd gone running to Harry and Ron. He hadn't figured it out then, why he felt so stupid around her, why it bothered him so much that they'd gone and made their trio without him, why he felt like such a screw-up for choosing the possibility of coolness over her friendship, not until fourth year when he'd asked her to the Yule Ball and she'd refused to him. Then his puppy love began in earnest, but, of course, fourth year was also the year when Ron and Hermionie began in earnest.
And while it was still just puppy love, there still could be a day, years later, when Neville goes out drinking after a certain wedding shower and ends up drunk out of his mind with a pretty young landlady he remembers from his school days. And maybe her hair will be just frizzy enough, and he will be just drunk enough that he'll agree to a date and it will only get better from there. But still, decades later, a girl will walk into his classroom, a girl who is the spitting image of her mother except for her father's red hair claiming her as his own, and maybe this girl will be the first of her clan to actually "give our love to Neville" and that night Neville will stay in his greenhouses later than usual, staring into space and remembering. For now, however, Neville is broken from his current reverie by a shout: "Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!"
And for one glorious moment, Neville Longbottom really believes Luna Lovegood, staring out the window despite everything he's learned, everything he's ever been told.
And when he looks back in their direction, they are gone. Perhaps it's for the best, thinks Neville, and takes another deep swig of his mug. He's got a long way to go from here.