A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and a thanks in advance to everyone who plans to review this one. I do love writing this story, and I'm so sorry about the long wait between updates.
Neville slumped against the hospital wing wall, fingers smothering the skin over his temple. The day had taken its toll on him, particularly after Luna stopped making pleasant small talk. He could actually feel the weight of Saint Mungo's walls, the pain of the of the patients' at seeing him fit and healthy. In truth, he would trade it all. He would trade a body merely scarred for a lycanthropic one, or one without a leg, if it meant that he could leave behind the devouring sense of guilt and grief.
"Neville... I didn't expect to see you here." Hannah's eyes were wide beneath her blonde bangs, though not as bright as they'd once been. He hated that, he hated her loss of optimism; he would trade his health for her innocence as well. "I thought you were down at Mungo's."
He cleared the scratches from his throat, trying to smile for her. "I was, with Luna. We finished though, and I thought I would come and see how you were doing." Hannah, along with Susan and Padma and a myriad of their other classmates, was volunteering to help the wounded in spite of it all. His awe for her strength kept him going, though she would never know it. After losing her entire family, all but a distant aunt, she still had the capacity to come here ever day and help her suffering friends - and enemies.
"We're alright," she said kindly, eyes flickering to where Parvati and Lavender lay. Their hospital beds were side by side, cruelly ironic in the resemblance to their dormitory ones. "Well, we don't need your help, is what I think I mean." She rubbed her bleary eyes, as exhausted as he, if not more so.
Neville knew the surprise and hurt showed on his face, and tried to hide it immediately. She spotted it though, and caught his arm frantically. "I didn't mean it like that, Neville. You know that."
He sighed immediately, nodding. "Of course. I'm sorry, Hannah," he said. "I don't mean to be so... never mind."
"It's okay." She took a step closer to him, scrutinizing the sweat beneath his ears and the purple circles beneath his eyes. "Of course it's okay. Neville... I think you should go home for a few hours."
"No, no," he brushed away the idea, straightening up as best he could. "They need my help. And besides, I'm okay..." He could barely summon the strength to say the words, much less make them believable. The sag of his shoulders hardly helped.
"Oh Neville," she said, taking his hand. Surprise washed over him for a moment, since it was the first real affection between them since the battle, but he let it settle into comfort. "You're not okay," she said, raising a shaky hand to his face. "You can tell me that you are if that's what you need to do, but I know you better than that." Her fingers wove through his soaked hair, far tenderly than anything his grandmother had ever done. He felt his veneer softening, melting away at her kindness. He'd never told her, never had the bravery - despite what people were now saying about him, but he often thought that he could not have survived the year without her. Her kindness broke through the hardened months of a year without much else. The earnest look in her eyes caught him around the middle, keeping him sane through everything the Carrows tossed his way.
"Hannah..." he breathed, wishing to be close to her, if only for a moment. Having learned that life is short, and it does not do to be afraid, Hannah enfolded him into her arms without a second thought.
"Neville," she repeated, finding the sound of his name a comfort. "You'll be okay." And she rocked him back and forth, hoping it was true.
Meanwhile, Luna sat on a bench in the Great Hall, one that she had never seen before. She assumed the workers put it there, sometime when they set about putting castle back together. It provided a good place to have a cry, when you needed one, though not in a particularly private place.
Still, tears rushed into her cupped hands until they were filled to the brim, and she hardly thought she should care what onlookers thought anyway. Crying was hardly a thing to be ashamed of nowadays, and people would understand. Besides, she thought, her back straightening despite the sobbing, she'd never cared what anyone thought. The only thing that shamed her, more than a little bit, was her reason for being so upset. Her friends had died, nearly her father too, yet her tears were over a boy. A boy who had never been hers anyway, not for longer than a misinterpreted moment. She thought perhaps that this was only an excuse, and she was really sadder for things far harder to process, but she let herself revel in this unusual bitterness.
"Luna..." A voice like gravel and pudding, equal parts smooth and rough.
"Hello Dean," she sniffed, pulling her hands away from her face. Tears continued to slip through her red-rimmed eyes, but she caught his gaze anyhow. At once she noticed that his eyes were damp too, shadowed by a look that she'd only seen once or twice before in him.
"What's wrong?" he asked, sitting beside her. His hand touched her shoulder, far gentler than it appeared with its calluses and fisting abilities. "Besides the obvious things," he said, laughing humorlessly.
"Nothing," she said, swallowing back the sobs. "Well, nothing important anyway. Nothing... like any of this." She gestured at the solemn walls of the school, walls which had once enclosed holidays and laughters. Walls which had once enclosed their childhoods. "And... and how are you?" He handed her a handkerchief before answering, letting her dab her eyes.
"I'm - I'm alright, I suppose. I just... I just left Seamus with the girls, though," he said, taking a shaky breath. "Lavender and Parvati," he added, when she looked confused. "I mean, they'll be alright I'spose, but it's hard..." Another quavering gulp of air, and Luna reached for his hand. "He doesn't like seeing them that way, and quite honestly neither do I." He looked at her, eyes welling once away. "I'm sorry. I know they weren't nice to you much..."
"That doesn't matter now," Luna said, shaking her head fervently. "Of course it doesn't."
Dean nodded. "Thank you, Luna," he said. They sat together for a while, and Luna felt her stomach shift. Once upon a time, she and Neville had been close. Nearly best friends, for a time. But things had changed. She'd disappeared from school, and - and he'd reached out to Hannah. It wasn't as if she hadn't expected him to date, of course. After all he'd been through, he deserved someone to love and kiss and, when this was all past them, to be happy with. She'd once hoped it might be her, but... but they just couldn't see eye to eye as they once had. And yet here was Dean. Perhaps it was the circumstances, for she could never have imagined being friends with him before, but she could talk to him in a way that she never remember being able to talk to anybody else.
"I - I should be getting back," Dean said reluctantly. "I think I'm going over to Seamus's for dinner, and..." he paused, eyes flickering to the hospital wing.
"Would you like me to come and get him with you?" Luna asked, so transparent in her understanding that it almost soothed his worries.
Instead, he offered her a sad little smile. "I would really appreciate it, Luna. Thank you."
A/N: I would really love it if you took the time to review! Thanks so much for reading!