A/N: Hey all this is my second fanfiction. I wrote this after seeing DH2. It's my way of justifying the end of that with what we know JKR has said will happen.
P.S. I deleted the first posting of this as I did not like it I have revised and reposted the truly finished product.
Thanks,
HH
"Honey, would you get that owl?" Hannah asks me from the Kitchen. I leave my study, walk to the back door and let the owl in. I catch a glimpse of Mandy, Alice and Frank running through the garden with sticks in their hands playing "Crooks and Aurors."
"Be careful of the plants Frank!" I call out to my son who had decided to take a short cut through the flowers instead of keeping to the path. Mandy is ten and is attending Hogwarts next term. Alice and Frank, our twins, are five years old. I take an owl treat out of the box on top of the fridge and feed it too the owl.
After being shooed away from the stove for attempting to sneak some pie, I open the bundle of mail. There are several letters from Hogwarts concerning my herbology position and end of term paperwork required. There is also a restaurateur magazine for Hannah. The last letter in the pile is a plain white linen envelope. I turn it over to read the writing. 'To Neville Longbottom and Family.' My breath catches in my lungs. I recognize the writing. I quickly open the envelope to find a folded, heavy stock card with a picture of an animal I don't recognize on the front. I open the card. 'I Xenophilius Lovegood am thrilled to invite you to partake in the union of my daughter Luna Marie to Rolf Aldo Scamander on Friday August 15th Two Thousand and Nine at 4 o'clock in the afternoon at the Scamander Zoological Preserve. Reception to follow RSVP.'
I sit heavily at the table and stare into space.
"What is it Neville?" Hannah asks picking up on my stunned reaction.
"It's Luna," I answer. "She's getting married."
"She is? Wow! I didn't even know she was seeing anyone." Hannah remarks returning to her stew.
"I don't think anyone did" I reply.
I don't know what I feel. It's not jealousy. I no longer feel that way about Luna. There was a time right out of Hogwarts when Luna and I were inseparable and very much in love. Luna was my first… a lot of things. She was my first girlfriend, my first lover, my first fiancée and my first heart break.
"So when is it?" Hannah asks.
"August 15th," I answer.
"Of this year?" She asks incredulously, it was already the end of May.
"Yeah doesn't look like she is wasting any time." I comment absent mindedly.
I remember living life like that with Luna. Never knowing what you were going to do in the next five minutes, let alone the next year. I sigh loudly.
May is always a melancholy time of year for me. Hannah understands and accepts why. It was May when my world came crashing down and I had to relearn how to live. It was nine months prior to that dreadful May that Luna and I discovered that we were pregnant. I was never happier and had never seen Luna more content. I immediately proposed and we decided to get married as soon as the baby was born. I love Hannah and would trade my time with her for nothing. But I have never felt more truly blissful than those nine months with Luna. Then, like I said it all came crashing to earth.
"You will have to leave, sir." I can still hear the urgency in the healer's voice. I was quickly rushed into the waiting room to sit with Xeno and a few of my friends. The longest hour of my life later a healer approached me.
"Mr. Longbottom?" I stood up and was across the room in two steps.
"What's going on are they ok?" I ask.
"Luna is fine and resting she should have no complications." I still remember the relief I felt and the guilt for that relief I felt later.
"And the baby?" I asked.
The healer's face fell. "I am so sorry. We did everything we could. The cord had become looped about the baby's throat. Again I am so sorry."
My world shattered. To this day I don't remember much of the next week. I remember snatches of the funeral, all the looks of pity and the platitudes. I came to hate them.
Luna and I tried to make our relationship work. We postponed the wedding and tried to console each other as much as we could. Nothing seemed to work. Luna just wasn't Luna anymore, but who could expect her to be. I could not fathom what she was going through, and she wouldn't talk to me. I grew to resent her silence, it felt as if she was telling me my grief was not as real as hers. It was then I discovered that which would be my constant companion for the next two years… Fire Whiskey.
At first I drank to forget the pain and grief of loss. Then I drank to keep the agony of guilt and rejection at bay. I was drunk the day Luna told me she had accepted a position, with the Scamander Expedition to the Amazon. I wasn't surprised.
More out of habit, than any desire to do so,I asked Luna if she wanted me to wait for her. Her one word answer said it all.
"Why?"
I grew to realize that Luna was suffering from depression and my lapse into alcoholism meant that I was not there for her. This fueled my guilt which in turn fueled my alcoholism. It was a very dark two years. I lived with and off of my grandmother. My days consisted of waking up taking a hangover potion mixed with a whiskey. I would then wait till four thirty or so, find some random bar and drink myself into buzzed oblivion for the rest of the evening.
Then there was that fateful Saturday night when I found myself in Hogsmeade at the Three Broomsticks. I don't remember how I got there, but nevertheless there I was slouched into a booth keeping my buzz going with a fire whiskey.
"Well, Neville you look like shit," were the first words Hannah had spoken to me in over two years.
I don't remember my response but it must have made her laugh. We started talking while I kept drinking. I am what the psychotherapist call a functioning alcoholic. In short, it means I can hold my liquor pretty well and, unless you knew me sober, you would never know I was drinking.
I opened up that night for the first time since Luna left. I told Hannah my whole story. I told her things I had not even told my grandmother.
"Ours wasn't the first relationship destroyed by crushing grief and unrealized dreams." Is how I explained it to Hannah.
Hannah also opened up to me. She told me how, right after Hogwarts, she had met a man. For the longest time I knew this man only as "The Prick." They had a relationship and to make a long story short it ended with Hannah being 19 alone and with a baby girl name Miranda, Mandy for short. Hannah took whatever job she could find and eventually landed as the night manager of the Three Broomsticks.
I became a fixture at the bar over the next few months. I was still drinking a lot but I told myself I was hiding it well. I figured I never got black out drunk so I didn't have a problem. Hannah and I developed an easy friendship. She would come onto her shift at 5 o'clock and I would already be there. I would stay till she closed at 2 A.M. It was during this time I met the person I refer to as my savior, Mandy. This two year old whirlwind came into my life and pulled it inside out. She had a way of worming into your heart and filling whatever void she found.
I had begun to realize that I had very real feelings for Hannah. I had not felt these feelings in such a long time. I finally screwed up what little Gryffindor courage, my shattered ego had left, and approached Hannah about my feelings for her and my desire for more. Her response shook me to my core.
"I am sorry Neville, I do like you… a lot. But I don't date drunks."
There it was my entire existence summed up in one word 'drunk'. I left that bar and went immediately to The Hogshead, bought three bottles of Old Ogden's and drank myself into a stupor in an attempt to forget. I woke the next morning face down in a gutter in Nocturn Alley. I had reached the bottom. I sent Hannah an owl saying I loved her and that she would not be seeing me again until I was the type of person she and Mandy deserved.
The next two weeks were hell as I checked myself into a Muggle detox center, after giving my wand to my grandmother. It was there that I discovered Alcoholics Anonymous and its 12 steps program.
-ooo-
Six months later I found myself in a small clearing in the Amazon rainforest, waiting for Luna to return to her base camp.
"Neville? What on earth are you doing here?" Luna asked dropping her pack next to the log I was sitting on. She looked much the same except her eyes. It was almost as if all the innocence and wonder that used to be part of her eyes was now gone.
"Hi, Luna." I said, while standing up, almost as if we were meeting in front of a store on Diagon Alley and not in the middle of a hostile rainforest. "You look well," I said.
"Thank you." She answered. "But you still haven't told me why you're here."
This was the hardest thing I have ever done, fighting self appointed Dark Lords was a breeze compared to this. "Luna, I don't know how much you know about alcoholism or a Muggle program called Alcoholics Anonymous." I started to explain. "There is a part of that program that in order to move forward we need to make amends to those we have wronged or hurt. That is why I am here Luna." I said sitting back down and inviting her to sit next to me.
"I am sorry for so many things. I am sorry I pulled away when you needed me the most. I am sorry I found false solace in a bottle, when I should have been finding the real thing with you. I resented your grief and that was wrong. I am sorry, just so sorry." I broke down, tears streaming down my face.
Luna looked into my eyes own tears leaving tracks down her cheeks, washing away, with them, the grime of the jungle.
"I accept your apology on one condition," She said. "You must also accept mine. I pushed you away just as hard as you were pulling. Whenever I saw you I was reminded of my sweet baby boy, who was gone. In my grief and pain I blamed you. You didn't deserve that and I am sorry too."
Together we cried, sitting next to a campfire in a remote jungle, we both forgave each other and started to truly heal.
My port key back to Scotland was the next morning so we up all night. She talked about her work and her co-workers and I talked about Hannah and Mandy.
"You love her." Luna said in a matter of fact tone. I swallowed hard and nodded.
"Don't screw it up." she said, smiling.
I stood up and hugged her, not in a romantic way, but rather a much deeper healing way. We both knew that we would forever remain special to each other but we also knew we had missed our chance.
I returned to Scotland and immediately applied for an assistant herbologist position at Hogwarts. Much to my surprise I was hired starting immediately. I also returned to the Three Broomsticks not knowing what to expect. The first night I was back, as luck would have it Hannah had brought Mandy to work with her.
"Neville, I missed you!" The little girl cried and jumped in my arms. "I missed you to, pumpkin," I said, scooping up the little girl into a big hug.
"You missed my birthday!" She pouted.
"I know and I'm sorry," I replied.
"S'ok " She said climbing out of my arms. "Just don't do it again or you be in big trouble." She said sternly shaking her little finger at me.
I laughed and turned to the bar. It was unspoken between us but I knew as soon as I saw her face. Hannah had waited.
We started out slow as I still had a lot to prove to both her and myself. At first we saw each other on weekends and the occasional weekday night I could get away. We were both so gun shy and tentative if it had not been for Mandy we might never had have gone further.
"Why don't I have a daddy?" She asked her mom one weekend when we were having a picnic in a park. She had seen the other girls with their dads and wanted to know.
"Your daddy is not here sweetie." Hannah answered. "He left."
"Well if that daddy is gone then I want you to be my daddy." Mandy said as she plopped down in my lap and drank some of my pumpkin juice.
Later that night we were at Hanna's apartment. After I had been forced to read Mandy a story before she would stay in bed, Hannah and I were sitting on Hannah's old plaid sofa, the wizard radio was playing softly and fire in the fireplace was crackling casting dancing shadows on the walls.
"What do you think about what Mandy was talking about earlier?" I asked, gently turning her face so I could see her eyes.
"I would be lying if I said I have not thought about it." She answered while blushing.
"I know I am not the most exciting or romantic person." I started, taking her hand in mine. "But I love you and Mandy so much. I cannot begin to see my life or a future for myself without you."
I slid off the sofa onto one knee still holding her hands. "Hannah Abbott will you please make me a whole person, by filling this chasm in my soul, and agreeing to marry me?"
The love in her eyes filled me with bliss as she said yes.
"I have something I want to show you." she said, dropping my hands. She pulled a heart shaped locket from beneath her blouse. I had seen her wearing this locket, but never gave it any thought. She opened the locket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper. She cast the charm to make the paper larger. I was shocked when I realized it was the letter I had written to her, pledging I would become the man she deserved.
"I never gave up you know," she said "not once."
She smiled and we kissed. It was not a kiss filled with passion or fire, it was a slow gentle kiss that we both poured our souls into.
We were married three months later and nine months after that Hannah gave birth to twins. Hannah suggested we name the twins after my parents who had finally succumbed to their injuries and madness, one month after we had been married. My gran says "They were just waiting until they knew you were in good hands." My gran is a different person now than when I was growing up. She never has a shortage of love or affection for her great-grandchildren. I joke that she is an old person trying to get into heaven now. But in reality I think Mandy helped heal a hole in my grandmother's heart just like she did mine.
-ooo-
"So do you think we should go?" Hannah asks me, pulling me out of my memories.
"I don't know what do you think?" I ask her.
She walks over to me and sits in my lap. "I think she deserves your love and support, don't you?" She says kissing me.
"Yeah I guess she does." I agree.
"Now, call your children in and get them cleaned up." She says standing up.
"Why is it when they are dirty or misbehaving or won't go to bed they are "MY" children?" I ask ruefully as I stand and walk to the back door.
"I'll tell you what, smart ass, if you can carry this next kid for nine months and squeeze it out your 'yahoo',then I will be more than happy to help the kid clean up." I stop in mid-stride.
"Uhm… Next kid?" I ask unable to form a coherent thought.
"Yes Neville, I am due around Christmas." I move across the kitchen and take Hannah in my arms, smiling from ear to ear like a moron.
"I take it this pleases you?" Hannah asks, laughing as I pick her up in a hug. "Put me down and go get your children. Dinner is almost ready." I put her down and move to the door, in a daze, still smiling.