Yay. I'm writing faster I guess.

The next night I after dinner, Seamus invited Susan and I to sit with him and wait for Neville, who was off on some secret mission, to return. We sat until the candles burned down into stubs, and then longer and longer. Finally, Seamus stood and looked down at us, our faces shadowed by the worry.

"Do we go look for him?" He asked, his mouth straightening into a line on his face.

"I'll go." I offered.

Susan made a noise and shot me a warning look. Seamus nodded and opened the door to the corridor, and almost tripped on the body lying against it from the outside. Susan let out a shriek and rose from the table.

I ran forward and helped Seamus half drag half carry Neville onto the table and watched as he ran for a first aid kit. Susan put her arm around my shoulder and vaguely I realized I was crying slightly, tears dripping off the end of my nose. His eye was blackened and he had several new cuts dripping blood onto the stone. But most of the blood was coming from his arm, where I could see a series of deep cuts.

Seamus was behind me again in a flash, and handed me some small bottle.

"Pour lightly on tissue." Susan read, grabbing the bottle from my white fingers.

"Umm…" Seamus was carefully spreading something over his black eye. "Some on the face too." He indicated a gash on Neville's nose.

Susan went to pour some on his arm but her hands were shaking too badly. I took it lightly out of her clenched fingers and poured a couple of thick drops over his arm. It started to bubble, and I took my hands back, worried I had hurt him, but then the skin started to heal. It wouldn't completely get rid of the cuts, but it stopped bleeding and the tissue around it looked stronger.

Susan sighed behind me as a couple more drops went onto his nose and chin. Seamus looked up at me. "Thanks Hannah." And then. "I wonder what happened to him."

I nodded, "I hope he's okay in there."

I could hear Susan exhaling behind me; in, out, in, out, in, out.

"We should sleep." Seamus said after another moment, even though all of our eyes were still glued to the sleeping figure slumped across the table. Seamus raised his wand and the blood disappeared off the table, and then Susan and I helped him carry Neville to his hammock near the ceiling.

I guided Susan to our room and washed my hands several times. Then, as I climbed up and slid into bed, I heard Susan rub her arms. I paused and pulled open the curtain to see her pale face, lying down over the blankets, eyes staring up into the wood paneled that was the bottom of my bed.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah." She was silent long enough that I was ready to close the curtains and head up to bed, but then she rubbed her eyes. "It all seems real now doesn't it? I mean, Harry Potter used to go and do his things, but it never. It never involved us. Now we're in war."

I nodded and thought of Neville. "But I guess we have the choice between getting dragged in or stepping into our armor. I'm not ready exactly, and people are sympathetic, so I think they'll be okay with you not wanting to fight."

Susan smirked. "Don't be an prat, Han. Of course I'm fighting."

I smiled back at her, but as soon as she thought I had turned away, her smiled faded and a frown replaced it. And as I crawled up into bed, sliding in between the sheets, all I could think was how much I missed it on her face, as often as that very same look had ended a joke at my expense, it had kept me laughing through the darkest of times. Now, I lay in bed and thought that we might say more, but eventually as just waiting as the silence swallowed me whole and my world faded into the comfort of sleep.