He didn't see her for eleven months. He'd never felt lonelier in his entire life , it felt like his light , his secret talisman against all the evil pressing in , had somehow slid between the gaps , letting the darkness rush in. Now there was nothing: no DA, no Hannah and very little hope for a bright future; the resistance was failing. He felt somehow older and quite disconnected from everyone else at Hogwarts , preferring to spend most evenings now alone in the quiet common room , sitting on his bed in the growing darkness turning the fake galleon Hermione had handed out so many months ago over and over in his hand. Until one night it grew suddenly hot, and within hours, their last great protector had died.
The holidays weren't much better, the word was that the ministry had fallen and, rumour of more and more terrible news seemed to whisper against his bedroom window every night. He thought often of writing to Hannah, checking she was ok, but he knew his gran would never let him use the family owl and, anyway, what on earth would he say to her?
The thing that kept him going that summer was the front cover of the daily prophet he now had pinned to his bedroom wall – proclaiming that now all young people under the age of 19 must attend Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. He knew that it was certainly just something cooked up by death eaters to keep them all under control, but it gave him the gift a little voice in the back of his head saying with every beat of his heart: You'll see her again, you'll see her again.
But it was never going to be the same. The first day back was a complete nightmare – he couldn't see Hannah anywhere on the train or even – though he supposed it shouldn't have surprised him – Harry, Ron or Hermione. He saw Luna and Ginny clustered together in one of the compartments, looking worried, but something made him turn away and find one of his own. He really needed to think things out: death eaters would be running Hogwarts, students would be sure to need someone to gather around more than ever, only now that someone – namely Harry – was gone. He felt for the DA galleon in the pocket of his robes and felt a thrill of terror or excitement or both – it looked like they were going to have to do it themselves.
Then, he saw her – just stepping onto one of the school carriages as he tugged his baggage off the train. Even after all those months of missing her , he was surprised at how strongly he reacted to that fleeting sight of her – his stomach seemed to be performing backflips – just like those the fake moody had made him do under the imperius curse in his 4th year. All over his skin tingled and he felt slightly feverish – but the rush of pure joy outbalanced them all.
She was already gone – the carriage had disappeared into the mist even before he could call out but he cherished the moment like the sight of a fallen star and smiled to himself as he got into the next carriage, patting one of the thestrals harnessed to it as he passed.
But the feeling of happiness only lasted as long as it took to get into the castle. Gone were the normal bright banners and cheerful faces that normally hailed welcoming feasts such as this – the great Hall was filled with sombrely coloured drapes and the chair that should have been Dumbledore's instead contained the slump backed shape of Snape – his murderer, whilst two more leering figures sat on either side of him and the other teachers exchanged terrified looks or else glared across the table with badly hidden loathing.
He took his place at the Gryffindor table next to a desolate looking Seamus and prepared himself for the worst, which was just as well as it was very nearly that. The speech seemed to go on for hours and it was all Neville could do not to run up and seize by the throat the man that had owed his life to Dumbledore but still hadn't had a problem with killing him in cold blood and condemning his every action in front of his school.
He looked around the sea of shocked faces , seeking Hannah's , and at last managed to locate her at the far end of the hufflepuff table – away from her usual friends and staring up at Snape with a blind , lost look. When she noticed him watching her, however, she surprised him by meeting his gaze ferociously for a second, before turning so quickly her long plait nearly slapped her in the face and staring in the opposite direction. It felt as though a cold, heavy weight had dropped into the pit of his stomach.
She'd ignored him before, given him the silent treatment when he'd gone too far, even shouted at him – but something in her eyes now told him it had gone further than that – like she suddenly hated him. It wasn't just him too. Over the next few weeks – whilst Hogwarts steadily grew more desperate and he, Ginny and Luna stayed up half the night planning the resistance, he watched her furtively- and what he saw, scared him even more. She didn't seem to be talking to anyone at all, but always sat alone, wrapped in the folds of a cloak that was suddenly much too big for her – how much weight had she lost? Other people seemed to be avoiding her too. It was like she had consumed too much of her own smoke and it was destroying her and anyone else who was foolish enough to get too near to her – the hatred and pain bursting through the shield she had built herself. She no longer seemed even to cry or display any emotion at all, just survived.
It took Neville a long time to decide what was best. For a while he thought it might really be best to leave her for a while, see if she could work stuff out on her own if she was so keen not to let anyone else in. But then he started to realise something else- she was trapped. It wasn't at all that she was choosing to act like she was – she was simply a victim of circumstance who couldn't see any other way out. He'd have to talk to her: he was the only one who could.
But then there was just too much going on – unconsciously, he supposed he was far keen to put it off because, deep down, he was just terrified that he'd break open the shell to find the girl he loved had vanished.
It so happened that the day he ended up speaking to her was the day they tried to rescue Dennis Creevey. The DA had found out about his capture that morning and formulated a plan to free him from where he had been chained up in the dungeons after someone overhearing him talk about the DA and telling the Carrows.
He swallowed hard as he walked back to the Gryffindor corridor that night. Trying to force back the image of the tiny body wrecked by the force of the cruciatous curse. He should have known it was a trap – that they'd lock the doors behind them and…..and…. He punched the wall – sending the occupants of a nearby portrait running for cover before continuing his journey, breathing hard.
The he heard a noise from a nearby empty classroom – like the squeak of a particularly frightened mouse. And pure recklessness made him investigate, wand raised.
She was sitting on one of the desks in the darkness, just staring at the wall and rage bubbled up inside him.
"You can stop feeling so sorry for yourself!"
She turned around slowly. Her eyes pinpricks of anger again.
"What did you say to me?"
He felt a qualm of almost guilt, but pushed it aside.
"I said your acting like a selfish little girl – do you really – do you really honestly think you're the only person to ever loose someone, to feel like this?" Her whole face had now turned cold and hard and it gave him a shock to remember who she had been.
"You don't have the faintest idea" She said, and her voice was almost a hiss. "You don't know, your parents are all safe and tucked up in st Mungos, so don't – don't even try it- Longbottom." He winced, she knew how much he hated his name, but that was nothing compared to the enormity of what she'd just said and he found himself shouting.
"MY PARENTS HAVE LOST THEIR MINDS, HANNAH! THEY DON'T EVEN RECOGNISE THERE OWN SON! DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT'S BETTER!."
She had curled up in a ball now and seemed to be talking almost to herself.
"My mother was thirty –five years, old, she was too young to die – she –we, we were going to go to America when I'd finished school – we were going to be happy."
"No one's ever old enough to die Hannah", he said and his own voice was almost a whisper now. "At least she got some dignity; at least they gave her that." He thought of his own mother, lying pale and unconcerned on a hospital bed, pieces of her whispery hair lying on the pillow beside her, a draw filled with empty sweet wrappers by her bed.
He was not aware of having sat down, but he found himself on the desk next to her's, his thumb stroking the soft wood of the desk, disfigured over the years by the graffiti of countless bored students.
"But you know what we have to do to end all this Hannah?" He whispered to her in the dark.
She shook her head fiercely, as though she knew but couldn't- or wouldn't say.
"We've got to Han, we – we've got to help fight him. It's the only way we can end this or-or it'll all just go on and hurt som-someone else's kids or-or parents or…."
He turned to see her looking at him – properly, for the first time in months. Tears were pouring down her face, seeming to streak it with silver and she looked scared and still more than a little distant from everything. But then she gave the tiniest of nods and stretched out her hand to him. Not as a sign of tenderness of friendship- but in the way a drowning person reaches out for a plank of wood, much too small to keep them afloat. Just so that they can hold something solid and real in the twisting, ungraspable seas that their life has become.
He took her hand, squeezing it slightly tracing every bone with his fingers and feeling a sense of homecoming. She was never going to be the person she used to be again – this new girl was fragile and still shocked by how life could change quite so suddenly and tragically, but he felt something else in her too now. A lack of the slight silliness that he'd always put up with with a wry humour and an increase in –well – her sincerity , she now knew , as he always had that nothing was permanent and that friendship and happiness-and love , were not things to be taken for granted but were special and serious and ought to be treasured. It gave them a bond he's never quite expected to have with anyone. Nothing was fixed yet, nothing at all. But at least now she, and they , still had a chance.