Aki- Okay, here is the next chapter. I don't think it is as good as the first, but i hope you all enjoy it. Thanx to Tenshi who proofed this for me and listened to my ideas for it.

Oh, yeah. you can read these chapters in any order you want. They are in no significant order.


Not Enough

"Brave, like his parents…like his father."

Those were the words Neville always wanted to here from his Gran. More than that, he wanted to earn them. Something, his eleven-year old self would have found almost unachievable. Back then, and for many years following (and most definitely before), he had been a clumsy, untalented, forgetful, bullied, almost-squib wizard.

His fifth-year was the first time he ever really felt he was worth something. With joining Dumbledore's Army, he became part of something greater. That same year he fought Death-Easters, faced the woman who was responsible for driving his parents into madness. The reason everyone told him how brave they were, the reason he wanted to be like them in the first place. He made his grandmother proud.

This year had been the same, but more. He found himself leading the rebellion and the reformed Dumbledore's Army against Snape, and the Carrows, and Filch in the absence of Harry, Ron, and Hermione (all of whom he consider more suited for the job than he). Neville had stood up to Voldemort himself; he had killed the Dark Lord's snake, as Harry had asked of him, with the sword…

Neville stared at the sword for a moment. He had set it across the table in the Great Hall where he sat next to his Gran who was bragging about him to the family across from them. It was a beautiful sword, Neville determined as he took time to actually examine it. Silver with giant rubies laid in the hilt. Sleek and sharp blade, the snakes blood still staining it. He narrowed his eyes when he noticed something he hadn't saw before.

He shifted the sword slightly, bringing it into better light. On the eternally shining blade, just below the hilt was engraved a name: Godric Gryffindor. He couldn't quite understand where it came from, how he got it, or how he knew what to do with it. It had all happened so fast…but he knew what this sword was now. It was the one he had seen I Dumbledore's office once. The one that Harry killed the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets with. For some reason he felt a swell of a blissful emotion he wasn't familiar with filling his body. Pride, was it? Contentment? Pure and simple joy for having proof that he did belong in the house of courage?

Or was it relief? Relief that he had true, concrete proof that he belonged in Gryffindor, the house of the brave? He had proof for his Gran. Proof for himself. Proof for everyone…making up for all the years he had been less than worthy. But the feeling quickly subsided. In the end, it didn't matter.

Sure, he stayed and he fought, but that didn't stop that terror that rained down onto the world the last year, or even at Hogwarts. His bravery did not save him from death, only luck did. It could easily have been him in replace of the departed Weasly twin, Professor Lupin, Colin Creevey, one of the hundreds of others, both in this battle and others, that now lay dead at the hands of You-Know-Who and his Death-Eaters. Many more suffering other horrible fates: those left behind, the widows and widowers, the childless, the orphaned, those tortured beyond sanity…

"Neville, where are you going?"

He had stood, unconsciously, which had garnered his grandmother's attention.

"Fresh air," he answered simply, an almost lie, before swiftly exiting the Great Hall. The signs of battle where more prevalent out in the Entrance Hall, where the joy of the Dark Lord's defeat had not reached. Statues lay broken and shattered across the floor. Painting had holes blasted in their canvases from misfires, ripped cloth hung of the corners of rugged stone walls, and blood was smeared on the floor every here and there.

Out here, way from the warmth of the fellowship and victory, it was just another battlefield. Just another sign of a life and death struggle. Will against will. The lucky chances of not being hit from behind as you held off another enemy, that a misaimed curse didn't hurt you, and that one of your own hurt a friend rather than a foe.

How could he celebrate with the others? How could he revel in his Gran's boastings? How could be joyous in his new-found bravery? How could he when their were people still mourning? Families, much like his, torn apart?

You-Know-Who was defeated, but it didn't fix anything. All the dead were still dead. He still hadn't gotten when he wanted.

Feelings miserable, exponentially so compared to the high he was in only moments ago, Neville slumped against the banister of the staircase and slide to a sitting position on the floor. He knew the source of his despair.

It was silly. However, somewhere in his mind, he had unconscious connected the death of Bellatrix Lestrange and the defeat of You-Know-Who with bringing back his parents. They weren't dead, but with the state they were in, it was hard to consider them truly alive.

Because in the end, hearing those encouraging and proud words from his Gran wasn't enough. Having used Godric's Gryffindor sword meant barely nothing. Have his own belief in himself was very little.

He used to think those would be enough. They should have been, but now, when he had them in his grasp, he knows that's not what he wanted all along.

He wanted his parents, the famed and brave and honorable Aurors, Franks and Alice Longbottom, to be proud of him.

But despite all that he had had done, he still wouldn't know if they ever were.


Next chapter is Dennis Creevey...