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The battle was over, Voldemort was gone, and as Neville Longbottom watched the festivities taking place around him, he felt like he should have been a lot happier.
But he wasn't.
He was tired, he was sore, and the adrenaline that had been keeping everything outside of fight or die at bay was finally working it's way out of his system, if the spurts of pain springing up all over his body were anything to go by. Judging from the expressions on his friend's faces, they felt it too; but some people express their grief in different ways, and Seamus, George, Lee, and all those other stupid heroic Gryffindors he put up with were seemingly trying to drown theirs in laughter (and alcohol, as Professor McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley were too busy to notice). They'd tried to get him to join, but he'd waved them off with a (fake) smile, and they'd understood.
Everyone has their own way to grieve, after all, and Neville really just wanted to be alone.
Harry had already fled, followed shortly by Ron and Hermione. He hadn't really talked to them yet, but he could already see they were closer then they ever had been before (if that was possible), bound together by bonds deeper than friendship, forged by the indescribable kind of trust that came with putting your life in someone's hands, and having them protect it with all they had.
That situation had become a lot more common in the past year than one would think. He himself had developed that bond with Ginny and Luna, due to the fact that they alone had been forced to lead the school, in the Golden Trio's place.
Shaking those thoughts off, intent on avoiding them as long as possible, Neville ambled off from the Hall, not really sure where he was going. Someone had already moved Voldemort's body, along with all the bodies of the Death Eaters. He didn't really envy them that task; it'd been all the teachers could do to prevent a lot of the students (including the younger ones, which concerned him) from vandalizing the corpses, in one last attempt to find closure.
It was cathartic, perhaps. But probably not good for their mental state.
Neville drifted through the wreck of his school for a while, picking his way through the rubble and carnage of a recent battlefield, and decidedly not thinking about whom the blood had belonged to. He wrinkled his nose as the stench caught up to him. The glory of victory, was it?
A rat, doused in blood, skittered across the hallway before him.
It prompted a memory, unbidden and unwanted, that floated to the forefront of his mind.
After the first lesson with the boggart, the students always looked forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts, but especially today, as Professor Lupin had told them that they'd be moving on to a new creature. He stood at the front of the class, a portrait of a nasty little demon propped up on his desk. "Alright, children, next up on our agenda is Red Caps. These are nasty little things, who live for bloodshed and carnage. Now, can any one tell me what…"
They had been so innocent.
The devastation hit him with the force of a wrecking ball, all the more painful for it's unexpectedness.
Merlin, so many dead. Lupin, the beloved teacher (and new father, apparently). Colin, the innocent child. Fred, the class clown. Lavender, the nosy older sister. You'd have never thought… he had never expected them, of all people, to die. They were still children, for Merlin's sake. There were so many others, too many, and none of them should have died.
Neville hoped Voldemort burned in the deepest pit of hell. He, of all people, deserved it.
Neville picked up the pace, not wanting to linger, with those memories, there any longer. He paused, however, when he saw a blessedly familiar blonde dangling her legs through a gap in the wall, watching the red dawn.
He plopped down next to her (which was a relief, because he legs were beginning to come to the realization that they'd been running around all night), wincing at his body's strident protests. "Hey, Luna. Thought you were in the Great Hall?"
Maybe it was a little thick, but he felt that a little idiocy could be excused after dueling all night, being burnt alive, slaying a "dirty great snake" (as Ron so helpfully phrased it), and suddenly becoming a hero of the day. What a night... was that only a few hours ago? It felt like a lifetime.
"Oh, no. Large crowds of people attract Wrackspurts, you know. I'm glad you escaped as well." Luna nodded solemnly. It was a mark of how much Neville interacted with her over the past year that his face didn't even twitch.
"Right. Wrackspurts. They were getting to me too."
They sat there for a while, enjoying the silence, watching as the slowly sharpening light revealed the fate of the world outside. Things had been so tense lately, always something to do, always worry clouding the air, that it felt heavenly to have some peace, though solemn it may be.
"Neville?" Luna's voice was oddly quiet now, and he could hear in it some of the bone-deep fatigue he felt, something that really didn't belong to a person not yet even out of schooling.
"Yeah, Luna?"
"Children shouldn't have to fight wars." Her face, normally so serene, was fierce, and in her eyes there was some kind of awful light, a broken innocence.
Neville exhaled heavily.
"No, Luna. They shouldn't." He placed an arm around her shoulder, she curled up next to him, and, together, they watched the sun rise over a new world.