"You amaze me, Neville."

"I knew he would get bored of me sooner or later. I just had to sit it out."

"The Carrows wouldn't have let you die, anyway – they can't – but sometimes... I do wonder."

"Nah, I'm too fun for them."

Neville was spread out along the Gryffindor common room's couch. Ginny sat beside him, a bowl of solution of strained and pickled Murtlap tentacles in her lap. She dabbed gently at Neville's grazed arms and the cuts on his ankles and wrists from the tight chains. As she did so, a slight pout came to her and her eyebrows furrowed.

"What's up?"

The expression cleared as quickly as it had formed. "I'm just wishing for Dittany. I can't do much for you," she said lightly, but Neville knew he was far from the truth. With six brothers and a formidable opponent as a mother, Ginny was good at thinking on the spot. "You're lucky we managed to get to Madam Pomfrey before a rib punctured a lung. You've never come from... detention so mangledbefore."

The school nurse had been forbidden from treating the students unless their injuries posed significant risk. The Carrows had opted to make Madam Pomfrey redundant altogether, but Professor McGonagall had put her foot down and dragged Snape into the picture. He had said something about a waste of magical blood. The Carrows had reluctantly agreed. Now, Madam Pomfrey did what she could, but she had been rendered useless for the most part. She could not do her duty, and that irritated her.

"After all," Alecto Carrow had said before admitting magical blood was better than dead magical blood, "what is the point of detention if they are just going to get healed back up again?"

Scrapes, cuts, broken toes and fingers and other 'minor' injuries were therefore to be completely disregarded, and Neville had a lot of what were to be considered minors. Crabbe and Goyle specialised in minors.

"Ginny," Neville breathed heavily as she soothed a particularly bad wound on his neck. "I know you better than that."

Ginny put the bowl of Murtlap to the side of her and reached out for Neville's face. He thought she was going to start on the gash on his cheek, but instead she scraped his forever falling hair out of his face.

He waited for her answer. He resolved that it wasn't as if he were going to be going anywhere anytime soon. He could wait.

The Weasley finally appeared to have found the right words, but she had a hard time forcing them out. "How can you be so optimistic?"

Neville closed his eyes, again, and let himself be comforted. His and Ginny's friendship was nothing more than platonic, but the smoothing of his hair reminded him of what he wanted the world to be like and why he was fighting and, honestly, of just how tired he really was.

When he didn't answer, she carried on. "You really scared us, Neville. You were taken down before dinner and we didn't find you until before midnight. That was two days ago."

He covered his surprise. "At least I'm out of the hospital wing now, though, right?"

Ginny sighed, her previous point just having been proven. But Ginny wasn't forgiving, and she continued even though they both knew she was right. "You really scared Luna."

"Blimey, Ginny, you sure know how to hit home. Thanks."

She smiled in spite of herself and her hand finally dropped. She went back to healing his 'minor' injuries, becoming even more and more generous with how much she was using and on what. "Thanks," he said again.

Ignoring this, she went on still. "Something snapped inside of that girl."

"What's the time?" Neville tried his hand at changing the subject. His chest was becoming tight.

"She got solitary confinement when she found you. Terry only just managed to get the two of you under one of Mad-Eye's old cloaks Hermione slipped me and drag you away. Luna went happily, knowing you were safe, even though she got an extra day because you mysteriously wound up in Madam Pomfrey's hands."

Neville drew in a sharp breath, although he did not know whether it was because Ginny had just bandaged up his arm tightly with "Ferulo!", or because Luna was willing to sacrifice so much. He decided to get Terry Boot by the tie and demand why he hadn't gone instead of Luna. He was tougher. He'd done a week in the dungeon's after only three weeks of term, surviving on little but the warmth of his DA galleon, bread and spat-in water.

His eyes remained closed as he listened to Ginny's calm breathing over the howling November winds against the window and the roaring fire.

Ginny Weasley was strong and stubborn and determined and she deliberately let her words sink in. Neville was their beacon of hope, their true leader, but he was noble to the point of recklessness and he needed to keep his head down, not for her sake, but for Luna's. It was plain as day that the two needed each other.

"I know you want to help," Ginny said after a while. "I do too, but first help the people who need you most."

"Bit rich, coming from you, ordering us to get that sword, and for what? We needed you. We need you more than Harry does now."

Neville was slowly becoming agitated. His smile had gone and his eyes were open. Ginny stared back defiantly, letting his outburst slide, but daring him to continue all the same.

He gave in. He refused to fight with his best friend.

"Sorry."

"That's okay." She got up and muttered, "Scourgify" and placed the now empty bowl behind her, wiping her hands on her shirt. "You just need to look before you leap."

"You know I can't do that, Gin."

"Try, please."

"Mm."

Awkwardly, she managed to sit him up and re-bandage his chest, his sides still tender from his ribs having been broken and re-grown again and again. With another gasp of breath, she settled him back onto the couch, knowing there was no way that she could get him up to his dormitory even if she put all her strength into a Hover Charm. "Do you want me to stay? The armchair's comfortable enough," she said, but she said it with a knot in her stomach, for it was the Trio's favourite armchair.

Neville noticed her slight pause. He knew it, too. "No, it's fine. It's late. You should go up. I'm better now."

"If you're going to be this mascot for the DA, you need to learn to be able to lie convincingly."

"Okay."

He was already drifting off the sleep, despite his worry for Luna and his desperate need to see her. He did not hurt as much. Not physically.

Ginny settled into the chair anyway, taking advantage of his weariness.

"I am sorry," Neville mumbled again, although he couldn't for the life of him remember why he was so completely exhausted. He'd even forgotten that he was going to make Terry Boot cry.

"I know. Go to sleep, Neville. Luna will be here when you wake up." And at that, he smiled the first genuine smile in what felt like years and, although less easily, he fell into the darkness a bit more willingly as he dreamt happy dreams of blonde hair and a pair of silver-grey eyes which did not belong to Draco Malfoy.