(no subject)

[kanedax]

Title: Those Left Behind
Author: kanedax
Fandom: Harry Potterverse
Spoilers: Half-Blood Prince
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harry, Ron, and Hermione have gone off, in search of the Horcruxes. What have they left behind?
Notes: This story was initially supposed to be chapter six of Dagger of Ravenclaw. After some timeline tweaking, and a few character tweaks (Vector’s Head of House instead of Hagrid, for example) I realized that this is a stand-alone, completely separate from the rest of the continuity I have created. So, yeah, just take it as a straight Potter story. Hope you enjoy.

“Mr. Longbottom, could I speak to you for a moment?”

Neville Longbottom, busy stuffing his textbooks into his book bag, looked up at Professor Flitwick, who was beckoning him toward his desk at the front of the Charms classroom. Looking around the room, discovering that all of the rest of his N.E.W.T.-level classmates had disappeared off to dinner, he nervously walked up to the desk.

“What is it, Professor?” he asked anxiously. “Is it the Sonorus Charm quiz? I know I didn’t study as well as I could have, and I know I probably got questions three and four wrong, but…”

Professor Flitwick chuckled, waving Neville into silence. “No, it’s not that, Mr. Longbottom. In fact, you got questions three and four correct, along with the other thirteen questions on the test.”

Neville’s jaw dropped. “Really?”

Flitwick smiled, pulling himself up onto his stool, where he sat at a little under Neville’s standing height. “Yes, really. Not only that, but you were the only student in the entire class to get a perfect score on that test. Quite remarkable, really, I feel like I poured everything I had into that quiz, I didn’t think anyone would have gotten perfect marks.”

Neville thought he would feel more proud of those words, but instead of saying thank you, or that’s great to hear, Professor, the words that slipped out of his mouth were: “Well, I probably wouldn’t be the only one, but…”

“Yes, ‘but’…” said Flitwick, looking around the classroom, his lips pursed slightly. “She’s not here, is she?”

“No, sir.”

“No, she’s not,” he repeated, more quietly than before. “Sometimes the world can be an amazing thing. Change can happen in so many ways. Hermione Granger was the brightest student I’ve seen in many, many years. She was always there, pushing the curve up for the rest of you. But she’s gone, as are so many others in your Year. And I think you’re all the better for it.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Living underneath someone can be a difficult thing,” Flitwick mused. “They become an umbrella for the rest of us. The world is an easy place as long as there’s someone there to protect us. To answer our questions, to help us when the going gets rough. But an umbrella casts a large shadow. Makes it more difficult for the rest of us to get wet. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Longbottom?”

Neville opened his mouth, ready to agree with the Professor, but then decided the truth would probably be better. “Not entirely, Professor Flitwick,” he said.

“I suppose not,” Flitwick said, pushing himself down from his stool. He looked up at Neville, the look of joviality so common in his face now stone serious. “The umbrella’s gone, Mr. Longbottom. You’ve gotten some rain on you. And it’s helped you grow into a fine student. One of the best I’ve seen in years, and that includes Miss Granger. I’m not your Head of House, so I don’t know what your grades are in your other classes. But from what I’ve heard in the staff room, your marks in every class have improved considerably. Am I correct?”

“Well, yes,” Neville said, blushing considerably. “But…”

“There are no ‘buts’, Mr. Longbottom,” Flitwick said, smiling again. “I taught both of your parents, and I can comfortably say that you’re following well in Frank and Alice’s footsteps.”

Neville smiled shyly. “Thank you, sir.”

“The pleasure is all mine, my boy,” Flitwick replied as he started stacking up his textbooks. “Have you thought about what you plan to do when you leave Hogwarts?”

“Not too much yet,” said Neville. “Probably something in Herbology, since that’s the only thing I’ve really been good at for a while now.”

“Which is a fine area to study,” said Flitwick. “But might I suggest possibly broadening your vision a bit? The first few years you were here in the school, you performed to a level where you weren’t able to get into many N.E.W.T.-level courses. However, the N.E.W.T.s themselves aren’t restricted to those who have taken the associated classes.”

“What do you mean, Professor?”

“What I mean is that I’ve spoken with the Headmistress and well as with your Head of House and the other professors teaching you this term. They agree with me that, with some study in the next few months, you might have what it takes to pass any N.E.W.T. that you put your mind to.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Flitwick laughed. “Headmistress McGonnagal said she would speak to you about this in person, but sometimes I just can’t hold in good news. She says that if you wish to take the N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration, she’ll let you sit in on her class. Unofficially, of course, more like an audit. Professor Slughorn has made the same offer for his Potions class. And you’re already doing remarkably well in Charms, Herbology, and Defense.”

Neville’s eyes widened. He felt like he was on cloud nine, but at the same time felt a ball of lead in his stomach.

“I don’t know if I’d be able to…”

“You are able to try, Mr. Longbottom,” said Flitwick. “You’re being given a second chance, which doesn’t come along very often. And probably wouldn’t be happening if we all didn’t agree that you have all the makings of a world-class Healer, Curse-Breaker, or even an Auror. I would suggest you take the offer. And wherever you decide to go after school, you can certainly use me as a reference.”

Neville smiled. “Well, I’ll certainly think about it. Thank you, Professor.”

Flitwick pulled his books from his desk and waddled his way out of the room, Neville following close behind. “Off to dinner with you, then, my boy.”

“Professor Flitwick?” Neville said as the two entered the hallway. Flitwick turned to face him as two girls approached from the opposite direction.

“You’re doing a good job, too,” Neville said. “You and the other professors. Without the umbrella, I mean.”

Flitwick shook his head. “We’re able to try, my boy. See you at dinner.”

Luna Lovegood turned to watch Professor Flitwick as he walked down the hall to his office. “What was that about, Neville?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You were talking about umbrellas.”

“I’ll explain later. Right now, I’m starved,” Neville said, turning to Luna’s friend. “Hey, Ginny.”

Ginny Weasley, who was staring off into space, jerked back to reality. “Oh, hi,” she said wearily, and the three began to walk toward the Great Hall.

“How was class?” he asked.

“Difficult, as always,” Luna breathed. “Once again, Professor Binns won’t even listen to the truth about the Goblin Rebellions.”

“The one about the vampires?” Neville said.

“Of course the one about the vampires,” she said, her voice, as usual, coming out much less angry than the words she was saying. “He wouldn’t even acknowledge the proven connection between the Goblin League and the Vampire Freemasons.”

“Right… the… the Vampire Freemasons…” He had been friends with Luna for a while now (and possibly more than friends, he thought occasionally before squashing the thought down and saving himself from a nervous, fluttery stomach), and while he enjoyed her company, he often had difficulty keeping all her various conspiracy theories straight.

Didn’t the conspiracy have to do with the Vampiric Legion? Neville thought, furiously flipping through the index card file in his head. Or wasn’t it the House of Erebus? No, wait, that had something to do with the Shadow Council…

“Well, that’s Professor Binns for you,” he said quickly, pulling out one of his stock responses when he finds himself utterly speechless in Luna’s presence. “He’s stuck in his ways, like most really old or, well, really dead people. Right, Ginny?”

“Hmm?” Ginny said, once again somewhere else. “What were you two talking about?”

“Nothing,” Neville sighed, and leaned over to get a better look at Ginny’s face. “Are you alright? I mean, you’ve zoned off a bit every now and then lately, but today it’s particularly…”

“I’m fine,” she replied, pushing her red hair behind her ear. “It’s nothing, really…”

“She’s thinking about Harry again,” Luna said conversationally. “I’ve tried to tell her not to worry about him. He’s the Chosen One, he’s off doing Chosen One things.” Her already round eyes widened. “I wonder if he’s involved in the Morvellian Massacre in East Bankok? That seems like a case that he would be involved in.”

“You shouldn’t worry, Ginny,” Neville said. “Harry, Ron, and Hermione are off on some mission that probably has something to do with You-Know-Who. If anything happens, one way or the other, we’ll hear about it. Either the Ministry will say something, or…” he cut himself off before he could finish his thought.

Or the Death Eaters will let us know that they got him.

“Until then,” he continued on, “There’s really nothing we can do.”

Ginny’s lips tightened. “I have to get ready for Quidditch practice,” she said quickly, then turned away from the Great Hall and toward Gryffindor Tower.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Luna said to her back.

“I’m not that hungry,” Ginny snapped as she turned the corner and disappeared.

Neville swore under his breath, and mentally kicked himself for saying what he had said. He had been invited to the wedding over the summer, even though he barely knew either Ron’s brother or his fiancée, Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons Champion. During the reception in the Weasley’s front lawn, Neville had gone into the house to find a bathroom only to hear muffled yelling upstairs. He couldn’t hear any words, but he recognized the voices of Harry and Ginny. This argument had happened only a few days before Harry, Ron, and Hermione had disappeared, and Neville didn’t think it was difficult to assume that Ginny had felt she should be with them.

Of course she feels that way, he thought as he and Luna entered the Great Hall. I feel the same way, too.

“I don’t know why we keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” Neville asked, looking up from his pork loin at Dean Thomas, who was scanning the Great Hall, the potato spoon in his hand and a scowl on his face.

“This!” Dean said sharply, flinging mashed potatoes in an arc around him. “The whole four table thing. I mean, seems kind of pointless, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Neville shrugged, talking through a mouthful of cooked onions. “It’s tradition, I suppose. Keeping up appearances?”

Dean snorted. “Getting harder and harder every day.”

Neville found that he couldn’t disagree with Dean as he looked up and down the Gryffindor table. As late as last school year, screaming, giggling students filled this table to capacity. Seventy or eighty easy, Neville thought, and that was just at this table. Each House had nearly the same number, and their voices would echo through the Hall, some days to the point where Neville’s ears would be ringing on his way to the common room.

Not so much anymore. He was able to count the Gryffindor students easy now. Twenty or twenty five, depending on what was being served for dinner. He had overheard Professor McGonagall quietly telling Professor Sinestra early in the school year that this year’s First Years represented the smallest incoming class in over a century. The Sorting Hat had a difficult time in assigning them evenly, and, in the end, some of the Houses were short-changed.

No House was quite so decimated following the events of last spring as Slytherin, which only picked up two new students in the Sorting. Of the students who were sorted into the House in 1991, the year that Neville had arrived at Hogwarts, only two Slytherins remained: Tracey Davis, who Neville thought to be the only member of that year without pure wizarding blood, and Blaise Zabini. Neville and Ginny had decided early on that Zabini would probably be gone, too, if Professor Slughorn, the new Slytherin Head of House, hadn’t convinced him to come back.

“Probably couldn’t resist being ‘Big Man on Campus’ for once in his life,” Ginny had giggled, one of the few times he had seen her smile this whole year.

Gryffindor had also suffered some damage, Neville thought sadly. With Parvati Patil and Seamus Finnegan pulled from the school by their parents (Seamus was still in contact with Dean, each letter detailing his latest attempt to talk reason into his mum), and Harry, Ron and Hermione gone off to parts unknown, Neville’s year consisted of himself, Lavender Brown, and Dean Thomas.

“I just think it’s stupid,” Dean said. The first night back he had proudly told anyone who would listen that his mother and step-father believed that there was absolutely no danger at Hogwarts, and happily allowed Dean to return. Neville secretly thought that, had Dean’s parents, both Muggle-born, had any idea about what had occurred here, they might not have been so willing to let him come back.

“There’s all this room,” Dean continued. “And the house elves are still whipping up food like there’s five hundred of us here. I just don’t think it would be a big deal to narrow it down to two tables, you know?”

“Yeah,” Neville said slowly, surprised to see Dean, usually so easy-going, so whipped up like this.

“You know what we should do?” Dean said, flipping gravy onto Neville’s sleeve as he pointed his fork at him. We should start a movement. You and me, we can stand up and invite everyone to sit over here with the Gryffindors. Shout it to the rafters, know what I’m saying? Start a revolution, maybe get the Administration to think about things if there’s two tables empty every day.”

“I don’t know…” Neville said, looking nervously up at the Head Table, where Professor McGonagall sat with the other Professors, including the new Gryffindor Head of House, Professor Septima Vector, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, the latest in a long line of Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers.

“What about Lovegood?” Dean said, turning around to look at the Ravenclaw table. “She’d want to sit with you, right?”

Neville sighed, looking across the Hufflepuff table to Ravenclaw, where Luna Lovegood was sitting, facing him. In fact, Neville and Ginny had tried on many occasions to convince Luna to come over and sit with them rather than with the rest of the Ravenclaws, who still treated her like an outsider despite their shrinking numbers. She smiled and waved at him.

“No,” Neville said to Dean as he waved back sadly. “She won’t sit over here.”

“Why not?” Dean said. “I mean, its not like she hasn’t before. Wasn’t she over here the day that Harry’s interview was published?”

“Yeah, but she didn’t eat anything.”

“So?”

“She learned that it’s bad luck to eat food from another House’s table,” Neville said between bites of dinner roll. “Some kind of hex that Slytherin put on the school before he left, to make sure that his purebloods didn’t mingle with the commoners. She read it in The Quibbler.”

Dean’s face scrunched in disbelief. “You’re joking.”

“I learned a long time ago to never question the ways of Luna Lovegood, for they often leave you with a sore brain.”

Luna waved her hand over her plate and looked at Neville questioningly. Neville responded by lifting his hand and putting one finger in the air. Although he hadn’t been able to convince her to come sit with her, and wasn’t able to convince her to let them come to her, they had eventually come up with a system of communication by hand signals. Neville had been surprised over the past few months at just how effective this communication had become, especially since they couldn’t speak to each other with the Hufflepuff table between the two of them.

How much do you have left to eat? Luna asked by waving her hand over her plate.

Neville held up one finger out of four on his hand. About a quarter of the plate, he responded.

“Well,” Dean said, looking on this discourse with the usual confusion, “Maybe she could talk some of the other Ravenclaws to come over here? Some of the other girls?”

Suddenly Neville understood, and he had to hold his hand over his mouth to keep from spitting dinner roll everywhere. “Look, Dean,” he said. “If you’re so primed to talk to Lisa Turpin, you don’t have to use me and Luna as an excuse. Stand up and go eat with the other Ravenclaws.”

Dean quickly looked down at his food, mumbling something about “another time.”

“Oh, come on,” Neville said, laughing. “Stand up! Start the revolution!”

“Nah, maybe not,” Dean muttered.

“Bet you Lisa likes a rebel.”

Dean threw Neville the two fingers, and Neville started laughing harder.

“You’re a git, you know that?” Dean said, smirking despite himself. “I liked you better when you were the quiet type.”

“Why are you even so concerned about dinner seating today, anyway?” Neville asked as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to Quidditch practice soon?”

Dean looked at his watch. “Not for another hour, why?”

“Ginny went up to her room to get ready,” said Neville. “That’s why she’s not down here.”

“Hmm,” Dean mused, taking another bite. “Yeah, she probably wanted an excuse to get out of here.”

“Why?” Neville asked. “I mean, I might have said something I shouldn’t have said about Harry, but I didn’t think it was anything…”

“Nah, not Harry,” Dean said, bending over and pulling out his planner. “He’s on her mind a lot, we all know it, but today’s particularly bad.”

“Why’s that?”

“You don’t know what today is?” Dean asked.

“My memory of dates isn’t so hot, no,” Neville said as Dean opened his planner and gave it to him.

“Today’s March 1st,” Dean said, pointing to the spot on the calendar.

“Oh, no,” Neville said, reading Dean’s small handwriting. “It’s Ron’s birthday.”

“I was wondering why she was being so quiet this morning,” Dean said. “Then I looked it up.”

“God, I’m such an ass,” Neville said, regretting even more what he had said to her before dinner.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean said, closing the book and putting it back in his bag. “I wouldn’t have known it either if my mum hadn’t talked me into carrying this thing around with me before I started here.”

Neville nodded, remembering Dean asking everyone in Gryffindor for their birthdays so he could write them down in his book.

“Anyway, I should probably get ready for Quidditch,” Dean said, grabbing two more rolls as he stood up from the table.

“Try to go easy on her, okay?” Neville said. “I mean, don’t try to play the knight in shining armor.”

Dean shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Longbottom. She’s Harry’s girl, whether he’s here or not. I can’t compete with that. Catch you later, alright?”

“Yeah, catch you later,” Neville said, looking down at his empty plate as Dean stuffed a roll in his mouth and walked out of the Great Hall. He looked up at Luna, who once again waved her hands around her plate.

Neville held up a closed fist. All done.

Luna smiled and shrugged, putting her hands out. What do you want to do?

Neville thought over what he and Flitwick had talked about. The nerves started to strike him, the realization that people were expecting a lot out of him. More than he might be able to handle.

You are able to try, Flitwick had said. You’re being given a second chance, which doesn’t come along very often.

He thought about his family, and about how they would feel to know that he had done his very best. The look on his parents’ faces.

Well, I’m able to try, Neville thought. The worst that can happen is that I don’t pass the N.E.W.T.s. But I’m able to try.

He looked up at Luna, put his palms together, and spread them open.

Library?

“I think it’s amazing they’re letting you do this, Neville,” Luna said later as they walked down the hall. She was holding two books under her left arm, idly flipping through a third, Arithmancy and You: A Beginner’s Guide, in the right. “I didn’t think that you could take N.E.W.T.s that you didn’t take classes for.”

“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Neville wheezed, straining under the weight of at least a dozen books stacked in his arms, with another five or six in the book bag on his back. “I mean, why should you be limited to what you can do in life, just because Divination is scheduled at the same time as Muggle Studies?”

“It’s wonderful that they’re finally seeing how great of a wizard you are, Neville,” Luna said, her voice sounding like she was just talking about the weather.

Neville blushed behind the books. “Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I mean, I guess I’ve just gotten lucky the past few…”

“I knew you were great,” said Luna airily. “In the Ministry. In the DA meetings, and last spring. I’m just glad to see that some else is recognizing you, too.”

Neville felt like his face was on fire as they approached the Fat Lady. “Thank you, Luna,” he said quietly.

“Any time, Neville.”

“Password,” the Lady huffed.

”Occulus Primo,” Neville said, still amazed that he had finally started to remember the passwords into the Gryffindor common room.

“You can drop the books off,” said Luna, “then you can come back out here and take what I’m carrying.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come in for a bit?” Neville said hopefully. “Hang out, maybe play some Exploding Snap with Ginny and Dean when they come back from practice?”

“No, I don’t think I should,” Luna said.

“It’s not a bother,” Neville said, “Is it, Ma’am?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing,” the Fat Lady replied. “As long as you’re not going to attack anyone, I think Mr. Longbottom can vouch for you.”

“No, I should probably go back to the Ravenclaw common room,” Luna said. “If I came in, people might think that we’re having the sex.”

Neville’s stack of books fell from his suddenly weak hands and crashed to the ground, the echo bouncing down the hall. He turned his bugged eyes and pale face to look at the Fat Lady, who was staring at Luna with similar look of disbelief.

“Or you can leave your books out here,” Luna said as though nothing had happened. “And come get them whenever you need them.” She bent down and put the three books she was carrying on top of Neville’s heap. “I don’t think the library would like them to be sitting in the middle of the hallway, though.”

“Ummm… uhhh…” Neville said, his face turning all shades of scarlet.

“Good night, Neville,” Luna said, kissing him quickly on the cheek (his face lit up even more). “Congratulations again. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

As Luna walked down the hall and out of sight, Neville and the Fat Lady shared an uncomfortable glance.

“She’s a keeper,” the Lady finally said as she swung open, allowing Neville to toss the books through the portal before climbing in after them.

It was nearly eleven, long after the other members of Gryffindor House had gone up to bed, before Neville heard the painting swing open for the last time that night. Ginny Weasley trudged her way into the Common Room. Her Quidditch robes were covered in dust, and her bright red hair hung limply around her face, the dried sweat making it look almost brown in the fading fireplace.

She slowly limped her way across the room, nearly making it to the stairs before the stack of books caught her eye. She turned to look at them, turned back toward the stairs, then did a double take toward him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back, Hermione?” she asked accusingly, a small smile cracking her face. “And what did you do with Neville?”

“Hi, Ginny,” Neville said, closing the Ancient Runes book that he had open in front of him.

“You have to be keeping him alive,” she continued, walking over to him, her eyes scanning the table, “Otherwise your supply of Polyjuice Potion would be worthless.”

Neville chuckled. “And here I thought the haircut would be a dead giveaway.”

“Well, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Ginevra Weasley, Miss Granger,” Ginny said, flopping wearily onto the couch. “What’s with all the books, anyway?”

“Thought I’d do a little studying,” Neville said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I need a really long shower,” said Ginny, picking up a few of the books. “And a five hour full-body massage.”

“Sorry I can’t help you there,” Neville said, yawning. “I’d probably fall asleep on top of you. Dean and the others came back two hours ago, where have you been?”

“Took a walk around the lake,” she said quickly, reading some of the titles. “Human Transfiguration? Remedial Potions? Manual Can Openers Through the Ages? Neville, these aren’t even for classes that you’re taking.”

”I know,” said Neville, cracking his neck.

Ginny looked at him oddly. “Neville, seriously. If Hermione’s using the Imperius Curse on you so she can get some more studying in, please give me full permission to beat the hex out of you.”

“It’s a long story,” said Neville. “One which I will tell you in the morning, when you’re more alert and less smelly.”

Ginny snickered as she stood up. “With a dry, cool wit like that, you could be an action hero. I’ll see you in the morning, Neville.”

Neville watched as Ginny walked to the stairs, the spoke up: “Ginny?”

“Yeah?” she said, turning back to him from the first step.

“Sorry about earlier,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get you upset. I didn’t know today was…”

Ginny shook her head. “It’s alright,” she said quietly. “Dean told you it was Ron’s birthday, right?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Boy always was good with dates,” Ginny sighed, sitting down on the step. “He always had our anniversary down to the minute every month, could always say exactly how long we were dating. Kinda irritating, actually. Don’t know what I saw in him.”

“Sorry again,” Neville said. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s okay, Neville,” Ginny said. “Hell, I used to forget his birthday sometimes, and I’m his family. When you grow up with six brothers, you kind of get them all confused.”

“I could see how that would be difficult,” Neville said.

“I got a letter from Mum today,” Ginny said quietly, looking down at her hands. “She wrote one to all of us. Me, Bill, Charlie, the twins. Hell, she even wrote one to Percy, even though it obviously was a lot more ambiguous than the ones she wrote to us. She told us how much she loves us. How much she misses us. And she asked us to think about Ron today. Like I haven’t not been thinking about him, you know?”

Neville stood up and walked over to the step. He sat down quietly next to Ginny, and realized that tears were starting to roll down her dusty cheeks.

“Ron’s eighteen today,” she continued. “And Mum said it’s the first time in eighteen years that she hasn’t been able to give him a present. She doesn’t even know where he is, any more than the rest of us do. They didn’t tell her anything before they left, her or my Dad. And it’s killing her, not knowing where he is, or where Harry or Hermione are.”

She wiped her palm along her cheek, rubbing the tears away and leaving clean streaks in the grime. “Anyway, she told us to think about him today. That if we all think about him at the same time or… or say something to him… that he might think about us, and know that we still love him. She said it’s the best birthday present she could think of.”

She sniffed, and Neville put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“So that’s where I was tonight,” she said, leaning against him for strength “I took a walk around the lake. Sat down on the shore. Looked up into the sky and talked to Ron. Said that I loved him, and that I was thinking about him. Told him to come back safe.”

She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dirty robe. “Sorry,” she said to Neville. “I didn’t want to be like this. Not today.”

“You have to be what you have to be,” Neville said. “You don’t have to apologize for it.”

“Ever since Charlie came to this school,” Ginny said, “a few years after Bill started, there hasn’t been a time when a Weasley hasn’t had some kind of family with them at Hogwarts. Percy came during Bill’s last years. Fred and George came when Percy was still here, and Ron and I came when all three of them were here. We’ve always had family in Gryffindor. Now I’m the last one, and I wish more than anything that I wasn’t.

“I don’t want to be alone here. I miss Hermione. I wish my Harry were still here with me, or that I was with him. And I want my brother back…”

The two sat in silence for a long time, Neville with his arm around Ginny, who cried quietly into her hands. Eventually she calmed down, patted him on the knee, and silently stood up. “Thanks for listening,” she said.

“You’re not alone,” Neville said to the floor. “I wish I were with them, too. A lot of us do. But just because they’re gone, it doesn’t mean that you’re alone. I’m here. Luna’s here. Dean’s still your friend, and Lavender’s alright. There’s Hagrid. I mean… I know we’re not blood. But I think of you all as family sometimes. And it helps.”

“I know,” Ginny said. “I like to think of you all that way, too. And it does help. I don’t know where I’d be right now if it weren’t for you all.”

Neville looked up at Ginny, who smiled sadly down at him.

“You should probably get cleaned up and get some sleep,” Neville said.

“Yeah, I probably should,” Ginny replied, looking up the stairs. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

Neville looked at the stack of books and sighed. “I think my brain’s as full as it’s going to be tonight.”

“Whatever you say,” Ginny said. “G’night.”

“G’night,” Neville answered. Ginny walked up the stairs toward the girls’ dormitory as he marked his place in his books and left them in a neat stack on the table. He blew out the candles, leaving the fireplace, now just a pile of embers, glowing in the dark, and went up to bed.

As he entered the room, he heard Dean snoring soundly. Neville changed into his pajamas and, taking one last look around at the three empty beds, climbed into his own.

He lay awake for a long time. He thought about his conversation with Flitwick. His moment in the hallway with Luna. His talk with Ginny. He thought about Ron’s parents, who he had only met a handful of times. And about his own parents, sitting in St. Mungo’s, not knowing who their own son was anymore.

Neville pulled the covers aside and walked over to the window of Gryffindor Tower. He looked up into the night’s sky.

“You all stay safe, okay?” Neville Longbottom told Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger. “There are a lot of people counting on you. A lot of people wanting you to be safe. And to come home to them soon.”

He walked back to bed, lay down, and before he drifted off, he mumbled.

“We’re all thinking of you.”