Disclaimer: I own nothing - not even the concept. That honour belongs to thanfiction, and the epic, incredible DAYDverse that filled a hole that I hadn't even known existed.
Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of Dumbledore's Army.
Harry is still a child in some ways. A true pre-war teenager. There is still a shred of innocence in his eyes that has even vanished from the eyes of Neville, of Hannah, of Ginny, of Ernie - the most happy-go-lucky, cheerful, upbeat people he has ever known.
He might be the Chosen One and the Boy Who Lived, but he didn't see half the things that the DA saw every day in the halls of Hogwarts.
Even Luna - dreamy, airy, distinctly dotty Luna - can revert to an unnaturally focused gaze and a firm, authoritative voice in less time than it takes him to draw his wand. He will probably never understand the hardness in the eyes of every member of the DA, the flinching, the always-tensed backs, the wands up sleeves and the knives in boots that will always be drawn in the blink of an eye, even years after the Battle of Hogwarts.
He was not there to see people used as torture practice, the public floggings, the dried blood on the floors and walls.
He didn't have to hear the Cruciatus Curses, the laughter, the sobbing, the pleading. He didn't have to hear the shrieking or the screaming. He didn't have to hold first-years as they cried from the pain and the shock and he didn't have to look into the eyes of children who had lost everything and accept them into the ranks of the DA.
Harry Potter entered the Forbidden Forest ready to die - but the DA had been ready to die long before the Battle of Hogwarts.
They were children, for Merlin's sake; what hope did they have against a powerful, crazed, blood-thirsty horde of adult Death Eaters headed by Voldemort? They called themselves Dumbledore's Army, and they trained as if they were; but they were nothing more than a bunch of schoolchildren armed with spellbooks and the ability to dodge.
Of course they were prepared for death. They planned it; planned to die on a stage and make their deaths mean something.
But they did something better.
They showed that children, for all their naïveté, for all their worldly inexperience, are prepared to stand up for something when the adults around them will not; that a whole wide world of grown adults can be put to shame by a handful of teenagers willing to give up their lives to pay for the mistakes and cowardice of others.
Not even Ron really understands. He too, is subject to fits of jealousy and episodes of a childish temper that would probably have gotten him killed if he had been responsible for the whole DA. He still cannot understand how Neville Longbottom has grown into the leader he is now, how he dealt with the grieving families in the aftermath. He cannot imagine how Neville told them that their children were incredibly courageous, how he held them as they sobbed into his blood-stained jumper, how he showed them the horrific remains of their children and didn't go insane.
Ron tells him so, in a tone of awe. He admires the person Neville has become.
Neville says that he's already mad with grief and pain, but for all his scars and cuts and lost blood, he's alive. People have died. They have paid the ultimate price - so how can Neville sit back and complain when there are families to comfort and bodies to bury and lives to repair? When there is a whole school to repair? When there is a whole society to repair? He can't do anything much - but he'll do what he can. He is alive and whole and so he is lucky.
All he wants is to go home with Hannah. He wants his greenhouse, with its plants and dirt and soil and mud and compost and familiarity and normalcy. That is all he wants. He doesn't want to talk to the Daily Prophet in a 'Tell All!' about the DA, and doesn't want to tell Witch Weekly about his underwear patterns.
But Neville would be a fool to wish for anything else, when he could so easily be dead. Instead, he thinks himself lucky to not be The Boy Who Lived, and puts two pots of Venomous Tentacula outside his front door to greet the Rita Skeeters.