Oh boy, aren't you lovely humans in for it this chapter. I've been planning Haven's scene since I first ever came up with this idea, and I think it turned out very well. I think that is one of my more favored parts of what has been written for this story so far.

Also, Sam and Dean. Enough said.

Good luck, and I own nothing still... though if I could own Neville I would be the happiest human alive.

Chapter 21: I Can't Do This On My Own

Dean's POV

"DEAN!"

Sam's voice pierced through the fog and the blackness, awakening older brother instincts that surged to fight off the haze of pain. He tried clinging to consciousness, but the more he tried to fight it the harder it became, until he finally succumbed, thinking, I'm sorry, Sam.

When he finally came to, he was lying on a bed more comfortable than any he'd slept on in ages. The linens smelled freshly washed, and felt clean. How long had it been since he'd slept in a bed this clean? Haven had always tried cleaning them to the best of her ability, but she'd never managed to erase all the years of stains and use, despite her many efforts.

Haven.

At her name, waves of emotions crashed over him that made his already-pounding head hurt worse. Groaning, he sat up, fighting against the dizzy spell that nearly made him fall back down on the bed.

"Dean! Thank God you're awake!" Sam's voice was quite loud and panicked. It echoed in his head rather painfully.

"Where- Where are we?" Dean asked, rubbing his forehead. Sam was at his side, unharmed it appeared.

"Some crazy people took us, I don't know why, but I don't think they're monsters and you were knocked out and you wouldn't wake up and I didn't know what to do and-"

"Sam, calm down, you're making my head hurt." Dean groaned, clutching at his head, "Is there any way out of here?"

"The door's locked, and they took all of our weapons! What are we going to do, Dean?" Sam asked. "Dad's going to be so worried."

"Is there any way to pick the lock?" Dean asked, leaning against the wall as he took in the room. It looked like a standard kid's room. There were two beds with blue comforters, both with nightstands that held lamps and a digital clock. There was a desk with many drawings hung over it, and a toybox. There was a closet to one side, as well as a door that probably led out into the house on the other. A shelf held a few nicknacks and various prized possessions you'd expect a little boy to have. On one shelf was a vase with a few wilting purple flowers.

There was also a window.

"Sam, the window. Can you open it?" Dean asked, trying to move but hissing in pain as he did so. He was still quite dizzy, and it was difficult to focus. The sun filtering in through the curtain hurt his eyes.

Sam opened the curtains, letting in more sunlight causing Dean to have to cover her eyes with a hand, "The window's been boarded up! I don't think I can get it open."

Both turned sharply when there was a knock at the door. Sam ran over to Dean, Dean grabbing him and holding him half behind him for protection.

"Can I come in?" called a male voice. Neither boy answered. The lock clicked, and the door slowly opened, a man peeking his head in. His hair was brown, his eyes a light brown. He smiled at them, slowly stepping in, revealing that he was holding two plates of pancakes and two glasses of juice. A pale blonde woman was behind him, with a hopeful smile and blue-green eyes.

"How's your head, Lucas?" the woman asked Dean in a gentle voice.

Lucas? What the hell?

Dean glanced back at Sam, before letting out a stiff, "Fine, and it's not Lucas."

He was unsure of how he should proceed to best ensure Sam's safety. His mind scrambled for a plan, but none presented themselves. His hands clenched as a forbidden thought passed his mind.

Haven would know what to do. She'd find a way out.

The woman just smiled, "I'm glad you're feeling better. We brought you both pancakes and some juice."

The man set down the plates and glasses of juice on the desk. "If you boys need anything, knock on the door. I have to work, but you're mother will be home all day to check on you."

It took Dean a few seconds to take in what had been said, like he had to translate some language he barely knew. Slowly the sentence unraveled itself.

The man had said the woman was their mother? What? Though, if Dean squinted, this woman could almost be Mary.

"My mother is dead." Dean replied after a pause.

"Lucas! Don't say things like that." the man reprimanded. It took several long moments for Dean to realize the man meant him.

Dean couldn't help the next words, which came out in a slur, "That's… That's not my name."

"Stop being ridiculous. I have to go to work now, but I better not hear that you gave your mother any trouble, either of you." the man replied. He bent down and kissed his wife quickly, before leaving the room.

"Why don't you get some more sleep, Lucas?" the woman suggested softly, "Tell me if your head starts hurting really badly, I'll get you some medicine."

As soon as she left the room, Dean let out a groan, collapsing to the side on the bed. The room wouldn't stop spinning.

"Dean! Are you alright?!" Sam exclaimed, hands on Dean's arm.

"Quiet down. Just… just a headache. It's nothing, don't worry. We'll… find a way out." Dean replied, closing his eyes. "I'm just going… to rest a bit."

"Wait, Dean, are you okay? What should I do?" Sam cried, "You're acting weird, you're head was hurt really bad. I saw him knock you out, and I'm scared. Why are they acting like this? Dean? And how are we going to get out?"

The words came as a garbled mess to Dean, who, despite his best efforts, couldn't seem to understand what Sam was saying. His increasingly panicked tone only worsened Dean's pounding headache.

"Calm down." Dean said quietly.

"But they have us here, and we have no clue what they want or what they're going to do! And why are they calling you Lucas and saying the woman is our mother? Dean, I'm scared!" Sam exclaimed.

Dean blinked a few times, before slowly replying, "Dad will… come find us, if we can't get out."

Sam shook his body a little, causing Dean to have to bite his lip to keep from making a sound as pain shot through his head, "How do you know? What if he can't find us? What do we do then?"

"I don't…" Dean tried, fighting through the descending fog, "I can't… I can't… think."

Wide eyed, Sam replied, "Dean, you're scaring me. What's going on?"

Dean's fog thickened. His head pounded and the world kept spinning, faster and faster and faster and faster. The smell of pancakes made him want to throw up. Dean curled in on himself, letting out a soft groan.

"Dean, what's wrong?" Sam cried, "What am I supposed to do? Dean, please!"

Haven's POV

The beginning of December brought an even deeper chill to Hogwarts, one that Haven didn't much appreciate. The castle was drafty, with heating limited to the Great Hall and the Common Room. The classrooms and corridors were freezing cold.

It was nearing Christmas, and with that would come a break in which students would be allowed back home. However, Haven was unsure of the plans for how she would be getting home, as hers was a special case. She doubted any of the teachers knew anything, and since no one had come to her to tell her the plans, she'd have to go ask Professor Dumbledore himself.

The problem was that now that she was there, the gargoyles wouldn't move, she was freezing cold, and she had no clue what the password could possibly be. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Perhaps she should have asked Fred and George about it, but she hadn't really wanted to be escorted down here and then end up getting into some sort of trouble with them.

She got a weird feeling she was being watched as she tried to figure out what to do. She began pacing in a circle so that she could look around without whoever might be watching her knowing she might have been alerted.

No one was there, at least not that she could see.

Huffing, she turned back to the gargoyles to glare at them. She was surprised to find that they had moved aside and that Professor Dumbledore had descended the staircase.

"Ah, young Ms. Potter. What brings you here?" the Headmaster asked, eyes twinkling behind his half-moon glasses (why half-moons? They would probably get in the way of vision improvement). A thought struck her that perhaps he had some sort of charm watching for visitors, and that is why she felt she was being watched.

"Well, sir, I wanted to ask about going home for Christmas. I heard that we're soon going to have to sign if we're going to stay here or not, and well… I want to know how I'm getting home, to my family." Haven asked.

The old man frowned, "You want to go home?"

She nodded, getting a bad feeling. That was a question.

"Well, my dear girl, why didn't you mention so sooner? International portkeys take a long time to be arranged, you see." Professor Dumbledore replied, "With this time frame, I'm afraid it will be simply impossible for you to return for the break."

Her entire body wilted, her hair falling forward to partially shield her face, "Oh… I didn't know."

She wrapped her arms around herself as if they would hold her together. Tears burned in her eyes, her throat beginning to feel uncomfortable from the suppressed sobs.

Professor Dumbledore looked concerned, giving her a sympathetic look, appearing as if he was about to say something, but she stopped him.

"Um, well… thank you, professor." with that, she turned and fled down the corridor, arms pulling tighter. Her fingernails began digging into her sides, the force of her will the only thing stopping her from breaking what little composure she had.

Her feet followed their own path back to the Common Room, then to the dorm. Unfortunately, she wasn't alone there either, so she pushed the tears back and pretended everything was normal for Hermione.

She curled up in her bed, trying to sleep. Everyone fell asleep around her as the hours passed by, but all she could do was stare straight ahead with half-dead eyes, hands clawing at her chest.

Haven couldn't stay in this room any longer. She got up, picking up a blanket and the compact mirror she had gotten from Sam and Dean for last Christmas without really paying attention to it. Mechanically, she made her way down the stairs, into the Common Room, which was completely empty.

She chose a seat before the fire, pulling the blanket around herself and hugging her knees to her chest as she stared at the slowly dying fire.

Haven didn't know when the tears started, she just knew that they came silently, pouring down her face and onto her knees. Her hand holding the compact mirror went white from the tight grip she kept on it.

She didn't know if they were alive. She didn't know if they hated her. She didn't know if they had forgotten her. She didn't know if they had forgiven her. She didn't know!

Her one chance to find answers was gone, all because she hadn't tried to make plans earlier. If only she had! Of course international travel took time to put together, even for wizards. How could she be so stupid about the one hope she'd had this entire time? Seeing Sam and Dean was the most important thing to her, how could she have waited and let her chance slip by? How could she say she cared about them? How could she even dare to miss them like she did, so much that it was tearing her apart?

Soundless sobs shook her entire frame and she curled further in, head ducking down to hide her shame from the fireplace. Her hands went to her chest, the one not holding the mirror clutching at her chest as if she could grab ahold of her heart and somehow stop the pain. She just wanted her brothers back. She didn't care about anything else. But she wouldn't get another chance for months, and she knew she couldn't bear waiting in agony for that long. She was sure it would kill her.

"Alex?"

The voice tore through the agonized silence. She couldn't bear to look up, to face those eyes. She closed her own eyes, hoping that he would just go away and leave her to her misery.

The couch shifted- he'd sat down next to her. She muttered something that may have been, 'go away'.

A hand rested on her shoulder, but she didn't look up.

"What's wrong?" Neville's voice was so soft, as if afraid she'd break into a million pieces.

She couldn't ignore that voice, the words tumbling out of their own accord between sobs, "I- need them. And I- I- What if- What if they're- d- dead? What if they- hate me? I n-need Dean. I need him, I- need him, I- and it's- all my fault, I can- can't see them. I sh- sh- should have- I should have- and now I can't see them- and what if- what if they're ign- ignoring my letters? What if they- they need me? W- Without D- Dean, who am- I supposed to ta-talk to? We tell each o-other ev-everything, and now he- he's gone and I hurt and wh- why won't they r- respond? I thought- at least S- Sam would and- I'm so- so stupid, and now- I can't see them and I need to see them be- because what if they're dead and it's all my fault and I wasn't there and- an- and- and-"

Neville's arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight as she began shaking, unable to stop as more tears poured down her cheeks. It burned that Dean might be ignoring her uncaringly when she needed her big brother so desperately.

"Sh… it'll be okay…" Neville soothed in that calm, velvet voice of his, his fingers running through her hair, "Calm down. Just breathe."

"I- I- I'm tr- try- trying." she replied, her quick, uncontrolled breaths making it hard for her to get the words out. "B- But- it h- hurts."

"I know, I know." Neville replied, the calm in the storm of emotion. "I know it's hard. I know it hurts. Sh… It'll all work out. They don't hate you, they're family. You don't have to worry about them. You've told me how good your father is at what he does, how good your brother is. They're not going to die. I know you're scared, and that you want to be with them. I know. But you're strong, and brave, and smart."

"N- Not brave, not w- without Dean." Haven protested. "I c- can't do this with- without them."

"Yes, you can. You can. You're going to be fine, and you're going to see them again." Neville's voice was so sure of itself. Water washed over her in a mist, and she could breathe again.

After a long moment of silence, in which she burrowed herself closer to Neville for warmth, he asked, "What are they like? Will you tell me about them?"

Haven wiped her nose on her sleeve, before answering, "They're… well, they're everything to me. I know I'm not related to them, but they're family."

"My dad… well, my dad is a superhero. He took me in when I was left on the street to defend myself. He taught me how to fight monsters. He's driven, more stubborn than a diamond. He lost his wife and effectively his life when Sam was a baby, in a fire caused by a monster. He's been hunting it ever since. He's the only person who's ever been anything like a father to me." her hands clenched as she remembered his reaction to the letter, "But… he's afraid of magic. When the letter came… I wasn't his daughter anymore. In the blink of an eye, I went from being loved almost as much as my brothers, from belonging somewhere, to being a monster. You see, we've hunted witches before, the kind that get their power from demons… and we didn't know any other kind existed. I became something to hunt."

Neville's arms tightened around her, his body tensing.

"Sam stood up for me, stopped dad from pulling the trigger. Dean was in shock, I think. Sam is intelligent, he loves books. Dean swears I corrupted him," at those words, she couldn't help the small upturning of her lips, "Sam is perceptive, and strong-willed. Despite being the youngest, he understands hunting better than either me or Dean. He understood the danger in it when all I saw was a story of heroes. He's… he's going to be an amazing man one day. I'd do anything to protect him, anything at all."

"Dean-well, Dean is my other half. He's one year older than me. He's strong, and he's the best big brother I could ever have had. He's reckless and stupid, but he's so brave and protective. He'd move mountains to save either me or Sam. He could do it, too. Just that stubborn. Without him, I might as well be walking around without my arms. We did everything together, including protecting Sam. We told each other everything. The only secret I ever kept was my real name, Alexandrite Potter, because to me it has always represented a little girl who was worth nothing, who couldn't be loved. It didn't matter anymore because I was Haven Winchester, and Haven Winchester was strong, she was brave, and she could do anything. She could be a hero."

Haven paused, "Without Dean, though, Haven is nothing. I don't know what to do without him. I just… I just want my big brother. I want to tell him all about Hogwarts, to tell him all about everything… but what if he hates me? Who… who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do?"

"Well… if you need to, Haven…" Neville paused, "You can tell me everything you would tell Dean until you see him again. I'm probably not the best option, but-"

She interrupted him by throwing her arms around him, nearly sending him flying off the couch, tears once more coming to her eyes as she buried her head into his chest. She didn't have to say anything, he understood her gratitude.

After a long silence, Haven finally whispered, "Will you stay here with me?"

Neville didn't say anything, readjusting himself to a more comfortable position on the couch. Haven curled up next to him, throwing the blanket around both of them to help keep them warm.

The next morning, the early risers woke up to find the adorable sight of the two first years curled up together on the couch, fast asleep.

And so starts the epic friendship I always envisioned for Haven and Neville. I love him so much.

Thank you for reading, I have really looked forward to this chapter for a long time. If I made you cry I send you your favorite kind of cookies and a big hug. A really big hug.

See you all next week!