"Avada Kedavra!" "Stupefy!"

It was like everything was happening in slow thoughts had left his mind. H e heard gasps all around but it seemed to him he was watching the scene from a great distance. Sounds came muffled to his ears, everyone was blurry to his eyes except the two people dueling. One of them was one of the people he respected and admired the most, and the other was the person whose most faithful servant had tortured his parents to madness.

He saw Voldemort's soulless body fall to the ground after his own curse backfired on him. Had he ever had a soul to begin with?

For a second everything went quiet.

Then at the same time, everyone broke into victorious screams. He could see people crying in joy and the crowd started to move towards Harry, who was already buried in Ron and Hermione's hugs.

Neville didn't move. He felt people brushing past him in an attempt to get to Harry, to find their loved ones, but he stayed still. On word popped into his head, one very simple word, the person he now realized cared for the most.

Luna.

Luna. He looked arounf for her dirty blond hair, sure he was going to spot it easily; Luna's hair always stood out in the crowd, exactly like she did. Even in this sea of overjoyed people , Neville was sure he would find her woth no difficulty.

But she wasn't there.

He felt panic crush his heart; fear overshadowed all other emotions, and it was more powerful than he had ever felt it. More powerful than it had been the moment he had stepped in front of Lord Voldemort, a lifetime ago, as it seemed.

Could she be—? No. His mind didn't accept this possibility.

A world without Luna…without her melodic voice that made him feel disoriented, without her stories about Nargles and Gernum Gernubli that made no sense whatsoever, without her slightly odd but wonderful laughter that always brought a smile to his lips…A world without Luna wasn't a possibility.

He tried to remember the Great Hall and hour ago, when the bodies of the dead and the wounded were being carried in. She wasn't one of them. He was absolutely certain. If he had seen her injured, he would have gone to her himself,and he would be with her until she was alright.

The thought calmed him down a bit. So she wasn't injured, she wasn't one of the fifty-four losses, she wasn't outside.

Where was she?

Parts of the castle were ready to collapse. If she was in there, there was a great chance a floor would fall apart and take her down with it.

Think,he told himself. Where could Luna be?

The Room, a voice replied inside his head. I have to start somewhere.

He ran towards the castle and the noise from the cheers started to fade. He got in and took the shortest way to the Room of Requirement.

He was on the second floor when her heard someone screaming. It wasn't coming from outside, he was too far away to hear what was going on there. It was coming from inside the castle;and it was a girl.

Neville started to run towards the screams terrified of what he would see. Suddenly the screaming stopped. He heard something crash against a wall and then glass shattering.

The noise was coming from and old abandoned classroom on the first floor. He ran inside and he saw Luna dueling with Dolohov, alive and well. Relief calmed his heart for a second but he immediately realized the danger hadn't passed.

Dolohov's curse missed Luna for some inches and he didn't wait any longer to step in and help her.

"Neville!" she exclaimed when she saw him step next to her and start shooting spells.

"Your friend isn't going to help you sweetheart!" smirked Dolohov as he dodged a curse she sent him.

"Oh yeah?" said Neville, gaining confidence and courage having her next to him. "Expelliarmus!"

"Protego!" yelled the Death Eater, and Nevlle's spell ended up breaking a board in half. "Avada Kedavra!"

Before Neville even moved, Luna had already cast a shield between them and Dolohov.

"Neville" she told him, in her dreamy voice "I can't hold it for long. Get Lavender out of here"

"Lavender?" he said. He looked around and realized she had been hiding under a desk all this time.

"He paralysed her and I didn't have time to fix get her out, Neville"

He quickly picked up Lavender and tried to disarm Dolohov one more time. He didn't even flinch; he stepped to the side to avoid the spell and kept trying to break Luna's shield.

"Now!" she said, raising her voice. He did as she said; he got Lavender out of the room.

Once they were a safe distance from the room, he put her down cast the counter-curse.

"Go outside, everyone's there" he told her, and immediately turned around to run back to the classroom.

"Neville!" she told him and grabbed his arm "He disarmed me! And then he paralysed me! I couldn't even move, there was nothing I could do to—she saved-"

"I know!" he interrupted her. "I need to helpl her! Just go outside!"

"You don't understand—" He didn't wait for her to finish her sentence.

He ran back to ther classroom, worried that precious time had been lost. To his relief, he saw that Luna was okay. She had broken her shield and was trying to immobilise Dolohov. She hadn't seen him, and neither had the Death Eater. Things weren't looking good for her; she seemed to be missing his curses by pure luck, but you could see the concentration in her expression when she yelled "Stupefy!"

The spell was more powerful this time, and Dolohov understood he couldn't avoid it with a shield. He did the only thing he could do;he fell to the ground to avoid it.

Neville realized this was an oppurtunity to help Luna, so he went behind his back noiselessly, still unseen. He signaled her to be quiet and she gave him a small nod before turning her wand back to Dolohov who was back on his feet.

"Expelliarmus!" yelled the man, and Luna's wand flew across the room,and into his open palm.

Luna was frozen. She looked from herwand in his hand to his dirty,scarred face. She was defenseless.

Dolohov still hadn't realized Neville was behind him. He slowly lifted Luna's wand and aimed for her heart.

"How about this, princess? I'm going to kill you with your own wand! Next time, let someone else be the hero. Oh, wait. There isn't going to be a next time!" He let out a sickening, terrifying sound that vaguely resembled laughter, but made Neville almost sick. He didn't wait any longer. He quickly aimed and yelled "Stupefy!" The red shot of light hit him in the back and he landed on top of a desk,unconscious.

Neville looked at Luna. "Are you okay?" he asked her, eyeing a huge cut on her cheek he hadn't noticed before.

She looked oblivious for a second. "Oh,that's nothing" she said smiling. She went to pick up her wand that had fallen down when Neville stupefied Dolohov.

As she brushed past his unconscious body, he flinched and went to lift his reacted immediately : "Petrificus Totalus!" The Death Eater stopped moving, literally petrified.

Luna picked her wand up. "Obliviate" she said calmly, and Dolohov's eyes went blank.

She brought her hand to the cut on her cheek . "Ow" she flinched.

"Here, let me"He approached her and pointed his wand at the cut. Luna closed her eyes.

"Episkey" The wound instantly healed and she opened her eyes.

She looked up at him and smiled.

"You saved my life. And healed my cut. Glass from that broken window, you see." She walked towards him and put her arms around him in a gentle hug. "Thank you Neville."

He wasn't expecting that. He felt his cheeks blush and he froze.

"Uh…"he muttered. "Yeah" He started to stroke her hair gently, hesitantly at first, almost afraid she'd pull away if he made any sudden movements.

Or something.

Anyway.

He didn't want her to pull away.

"But you saved Lavender's" he said , just so that he had something to say.

"Oh. I just happened to hear them, that's all" she said. The sound of her melodic voice, her breaths on his chest, her petite body against his, all these things made Neville forget they were in grave danger less than five minutes ago.

"Why were you here?" she asked him. She looked up at him and locked her sky blue eyes on his.

It took Neville a second to answer; his mind had gone completely blank. Her blue orbs seriously messed with his head.

"I was…actually, I was looking for you" he told her, and looked straight forward. Her eyes had a very strange effect on him.

"Why?" she asked, like a little child asking her parents why the sky is blue.

"Because I couldn't find you after Harry killed Voldemort"

"I saw that" she said, resting her head on his chest again, which caused his heartbeat to increase. She seemed to be comfortable in his arms. "I was at the back of the crowd though, I could hardly see what was going on"

"How did you end up in here anyway?"

"Oh, I just heard someone screaming" she told him. "I got in the castle and saw Dolohov chasing Lavender. She was running to avoid his curses but then he cornered her in here. He had already disarmed her when I got here" She was calm,composed; she could easily be telling a kid a bedtime story.

"You put up a hell of a fight" he said, trying to keep calm; having her this close was unsettling.

"Even if I did, I would be dead if it weren't for you" She unrapped her hands from his waist and pulled his face close to hers, making their eyes meet again. "Thank you Neville"

At that moment every other thought dissappeared; he didn't remember anyone else, he could of nothing but her. She stood on her toes and their lips finally met in a soft, gentle kiss. He couldn't hear, he couldn't see: he could only feel.

And the only thing he felt were her lips against his.