Hello! Would you look at this? It's another chapter! This time it's Neville (who is totally awesome), with a special guest appearance by the equally awesome Luna Lovegood. No flashbacks in this chapter—now it's really a lot of dialogue (something exciting and new!) So please, enjoy and review!
I'm not used to this—it's too loud here, too crowded. So many people have huddled around me that I can't see beyond them. It's just a mass of black robes and dirty, eager, hopeful faces gazing at me, each one with an open mouth asking me question after question that I can't understand, much less answer. Instead, I just force a smile and stare down at my hands.
They're clutching the hilt of the sword. The Sword of Gryffindor. Harry said that only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat, and a year ago, I wouldn't have believed him. The concept of me being a true Gryffindor was laughable, not only to other people. I went through six years of my life believing that the Sorting Hat had made some kind of horrible mistake and placed me in the wrong house. I mean, brave? Me? Even after what happened in the Ministry, I didn't believe it. It was a fluke, a trick, a dream, and soon I'd wake up and return to reality, to being a bumbling fool. And I did wake up, and I did go back to being a bumbling fool, all through sixth year.
Then it all went to hell.
I sigh, and my fists clench on the hilt. I can feel the ridges of the leather against my palm and I run my fingers along it, determined to memorize every single detail of this passing moment of glory before I screw up and explode a potion or a spell backfires and my hair turns to gardenias sprouting from the top of my head. No one around me notices that I'm not paying any attention to them. They just keep on shouting their questions at me, pressing in around me until I feel like I can't breath, and all I want to do is get out.
Then one voice floats above the others, and I grin in recognition. "Professor McGonnagall wants to speak with you, Neville," Luna says, and I turn to see her standing right next to me. I have no idea how she wove her way through this mass of mad people, but she has and I have never been happier to see someone in my entire life. I fake regret and, shrugging, follow her long mane of blonde hair out of the Great Hall and to the steps outside.
"Professor McGonnagall didn't really want to see you," she says, gazing out over the horizon. Her huge eyes are distant, and there are tear tracks through the grime on her cheeks. I remember, suddenly, how she looked during the battle, her expression wild but focused as she dodged curse after curse hurled by Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who'd…wrecked my entire life. I had admired her courage in that moment, but not as much as I did right now. Her expression was stoic, hard as stone, not her normal sort of airy delight in the world.
"No, I knew that," I reply. "And thanks. I didn't think I could take much more of that."
Luna smiles tightly, but doesn't look at me. "Harry needed to get out, too," she says. "I'm not sure where he and Ron and Hermione went off to."
"The heroes of the hour." I bite my lip as I say this, feeling an odd mixture of jealousy and affection. Ever since coming to Hogwarts, I'd looked up to those three, seeing them as the essence of Gryffindor—as being everything that I wasn't. They had always had the answers, they always knew what to do and how to do it, they were always right in the middle of the action.
"It's…it's good to see you again," I offer. My hands clench in embarrassment at this, and I realize in surprise that I've taken the sword with me. Carefully laying it down on the steps next to me, I do my best to catch Luna's eye.
"Yes, well…" she makes an airy gesture that is reminiscent of the old Luna. "I've been…busy."
"Locked up in the Malfoy's cellar and then confined to the Weasley's cottage?" I ask. Luna looks at me for the first time, incredulity filling her huge eyes. "Ron told me," I explain.
"Oh," she says. "Well…yes. That's pretty much it." She looks down, studying the torn, dirty fabric of her robes, and suddenly I know what's bothering her.
"Any word about your father?" I ask gently. Without responding or meeting my eyes, she shakes her head. Awkwardly, I place an arm around her shoulders. "He'll be all right," I tell her, aware that this meager comfort won't be much help. She needs to talk to Hermione, to Ginny, to someone who will know what to do.
But to my amazement, she leans against my chest, closing her eyes. Somewhat at a loss, I pat her shoulder, watching as one tear gleams its way down her cheek, cleaning a new track in the dirt.
"You were so brave today," I say, and now it's me looking out over the horizon. "I saw you in the middle of things, dueling with Bellatrix Lestrange. It's got to be one of the bravest things I've ever seen anyone do."
She snorts, which startles me. I don't think I've ever heard her make a noise like that before. "I had Hermione and Ginny to help me," she said, raising a hand to brush the tear off her face. "And we weren't the ones who finished her."
"Well, wherever your father is, I'm sure he'll be very proud of you when he hears about what happened," I venture, not saying what we both are thinking. What if he's dead? What happens if he's dead?
"He's all I've got," Luna says in a small voice, and I know she's talking about her father. "I'm all he's got. If he's gone…"
"Then you'll still have us," I say firmly, squeezing her shoulder. She laughs, but her heart isn't into it.
"Well, speaking of bravery," she says, changing the subject abruptly, "how about you? You faced down You-Know-Who himself! You killed his snake!"
I blink. To be terribly honest, I haven't been thinking about that much. My thoughts have been preoccupied with the dark hours before then, with searching through the courtyard and the castle for the bodies of my friends and fellow classmates. I've been thinking of how light Colin Creevey was when Oliver and I lifted him into the air, with how it felt to see faces that I recognized on the bodies of the slain, eyes closed, never to open again. My heart twists to remember, and suddenly my mouth goes dry and I can't speak.
"It's okay to remember," says Luna in her normal soft voice. "They wouldn't want us to forget them. It's even okay to mourn. Just don't let it consume you. We have to move forward with our lives, to keep living and loving even though they're gone."
I look at her, startled by the wisdom in her words. My Gran had said almost the same thing to me when I first realized that I would never have parents like other children. Luna smiles, and this time it's a real Luna-smile full of light and joy and the slight twist of the extremely weird. Her eyes are focused on me, focused for the first time in a while.
"If you admit that you were brave," she says, "then I will admit that I was. Because you were. And it was pretty nervy of me to take on Bellatrix Lestrange."
"I'm not a true Gryffindor!" I protest, gesturing helplessly. "It's Ron and Hermione and Harry who are!"
"Ron and Hermione and Harry weren't here this year," Luna points out. "They were off on their own. You were the one who commanded the DA, who braved the Death Eaters and who faced Voldemort." She pats my arm. "You are the truest Gryffindor of them all."
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