Okay, so, like I've mentioned, Neville/Luna is my ONE TRUE PAIRING, and I love them to death, though they're not technically canon. Even if they don't end up together end up together, I still like to imagine that they were together at some point. So these oneshots will most likely take place right after (maybe a few during) the war, in no particular order. In some cases they'll be chronological, in others not. This one, I think takes place just a couple of weeks after the final battle, when they've started repairing the castle. I imagine the repairs would take quite awhile, especially since in a lot of cases the damage was Dark magic. Anyway, after that long Author's Note, here is my disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Just my copies of the books.
"Luna!"
She lay, a crumpled figure in the middle of the hall, her back arching and heaving under Bellatrix's wand – and she was screaming, a sort of awful, unearthly cross between a wail and a screech. He stood behind her, rooted to the spot, unable to move his legs, unable to do anything but stare, open-mouthed with horror, and scream –
"Luna! LUNA!"
Yelling and kicking, he struggled out of the dream, eyes wide open, staring around him but seeing nothing, his breath heaving –
"Neville?"
Her soft voice penetrated the haze that his mind had become, reaching through his panic to draw him, panting, back to full consciousness. He could feel the growing grass prickling against his back, could see the sun hanging low in the sky, reflecting off the lake: He was on the Hogwarts grounds.
Luna sat beside him, on his right, with her knees drawn up to her chest. She had obviously been sitting in her favorite reflective pose (her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging them close to her body, and her head propped up on her knees, gazing into the distance), but had partially abandoned it for the moment – her left hand was now stroking his face, gently brushing the sweaty hair off his forehead, and her right was waving in the air above him. (It was her typical reaction to a bad dream; trying to get rid of the Wrackspurts which she claimed were causing it) Her face was turned down to him, filled with concern.
"Luna." He was still breathing hard, still shaking. He caught her hand in his, trying to reassure himself that she was still there, still alive. "You're okay."
"I am," she promised him. "You were just dreaming, that was all. It was just the Wrackspurts. Just a nightmare."
"But Bellatrix," he gasped, "she was torturing you" –
"I know." She squeezed his hand, as though assuring him that she was still there beside him. "But she's gone now. She's not coming back. For you or for me."
"Yes," he agreed, his panic ebbing away and his eyes half-closing again. They'd been working so hard the last few weeks, repairing the castle, and they were only on a brief break but he was so tired . . . but the idea of going to sleep again, after that dream . . .
"Here." As though reading his mind, Luna shifted position so that she was sitting cross-legged on the ground beside him, letting go of his hand to adjust her robes. "Lay your head in my lap." She brushed her thumb along his hairline again, her touch banishing any resistance, softening his whole body into jelly. "I won't let any more bad dreams reach you."
She placed both hands on his head, framing his face with her fingers, and, obligingly, he shifted over until he was even closer, lying perpendicular to where she was sitting. The fabric of her robes was stretched over her knees, and he rested his head in the middle – a trampoline-like hollow, surprisingly soft. It was nice; comfortable – he could feel the warmth of her body all around him; could breathe in her unique scent, all Luna. Her hands were soft, soothing, on his face – smoothing his hair back from his forehead and temples; tracing the shadows of stubble on his chin and cheeks and upper lip; gently caressing the lines of the scars that Amycus and Alecto had etched permanently into his face.
He could feel the wind as she waved one hand above his head, trying to shoo away all the Wrackspurts that might surround him. And, though he didn't believe in Wrackspurts, it seemed to be working. The memory of the dream was already fading, receding into the mist that his mind had become.
Faintly above him, he could hear her singing – a song he didn't recognize, something in a strange but beautiful language. "Sleep," she murmured when she was finished; the last sensation that he felt was the tickle of her hair, the pressure of her lips against his skin as she leaned down to kiss him lightly on the cheek, and then he sank gratefully into a dreamless oblivion.
