Neville could see someone unsteadily climbing on an old wooden stool. He turned to see Seamus being restored to uprightness by Ernie Macmillan's large hands. Seamus sloshed his fire whiskey above his head trying to get the dispersed members attention. Ginny, taking pity on him, placed two fingers between her lips and let a whistle rip, by her side, Harry flinched at her volume. Silence descended on Dumbledore's Army.

"Ginny," Seamus acknowledged before turning back to his audience. "Now I'm not the one ta give speeches usually. We leave that up ta Harry and Ginny and Neville, but we brought ya here today ta honour our fallen in our way. We've done enough, I t'ink, of the funerals and ceremonies ta last a lifetime, this is about us and what we lost and what we remember. Lavender Brown was a fine lass and she loved ta laugh, she loved ta gossip and she loved ta fight and I t'ink she'd like it here tonight with all of us doing just that. That's all I wanted ta say really, right, Macmillan help a bloke off this damn stool will ya?" Ernie gave a hearty guffaw as he hoisted Seamus off the chair.

"Pretty good, as a drunk Seamus speech goes really." Neville heard Ron say to Hermione. "Do you remember when we won the Quidditch last year and he smuggled something into the punch and declared himself a golden god?"

"No," Hermione blinked. "Why didn't you stop him Ron? You were a prefect!"

"I should go check on him," Neville said rising.

"Stay Neville, I don't think Seamus has had nearly as much to drink as everyone thinks." Luna caught his forearm.

"He seems pretty done in to me," he replied though he stayed where he was stilled by her soft hand.

"Yes, but I think it's more exhaustion and the relief of being back with people who really understand."

"Relief?"

"Don't you feel it too?" He let the label stew for a moment raising his eyebrow in surprise when it did fix upon the feeling he had got from returning to the Hog's Head, from surrounding himself with all these comrades in arms and no one else.

"Blimey," he said slumping back into his seat. Across the way he watched as Seamus made a joke causing Harry, who had taken his wand out and was drumming it against his side, to rock back on his chair with laughter. For weeks now every time he'd seen these faces they had looked more tired, more pale and more broken than before but here away from all the trappings of death and mourning without the requirement to remain sombre and sober, Luna was right, there was relief. Even Pravati, her legs curled up on the bench beside her and missing her best friend terribly, smiled a measure as Dean who had acquired a drawing pad and charcoal drew her likeness. No one here was going to say they didn't feel the pain they felt or hadn't shown the right amount of respect.

"It doesn't seem right to be relieved." He shook his head.

She leaned in closer so they would not be overheard. "There's no right or wrong with feelings, it's what you do with them that affects the world."

"And what are you feeling Luna?" It felt easier to ask here surrounded by a wall of noise from the rising intoxication of the Hog's heads guests and the crackling fire. She curled herself against him so that without his moving she now sat comfortably between his body and outstretched arm.

"Oh lots of things, but I think perhaps…" she said tasting the words, "safe."

How did she do that? Shift from being his loony friend to this graceful woman in his arms. There was no inauthenticity when she did it, none of the stop-start or jarring shifts he felt when he'd tried to move from tag along friend to someone you'd want to curl up with in a crowded pub. And the thought that kept leaking from the back of his mind where he'd shoved it time and time again was, the person he would have asked, that person, was the girl with the paper umbrella weaved into her blonde hair and humming to herself quietly in his arms. You could ask the humming, Rotfang conspiracy Luna. You couldn't ask the Luna that made his mind fuzzy and his palms sweaty. And yet they were the same damn person.

"Safe, yeah, safe's good." He took a mouthful of the drink Hermione had put in front of him grabbing it awkwardly with his right hand so as not to jostle Luna. It was warm and he could feel it relaxing the muscles in his neck. He'd rolled his sleeves up to his elbows after leaving the wake and Luna was intently playing with the hairs on his left arm. It tickled but it also felt startlingly intimate. He forced himself to stay still struggling with an inner monologue of repression, embarrassment and lust. He silently wished he was either drunker or on the other side of the room and yet at the same time that he was exactly where he was, who he was and with whom he was. He licked his bottom lip watching her little fingers run up a down between the dark hairs on his fair skin.

It felt like the room narrowed around them until it was just he and Luna and the bench that held them against the wall. His chest was on fire but his fingertips had gone cold. He could, from here, reach down and brush her hair from her neck and in an instant have his mouth on that space below her ear lobe and the radish shaped earing that hung there.

"Oi Luna what are ya doing ta our leader!"

And the room expanded to include Seamus Finnegan.