Chapter six: New Possibilities
"'All I know is that Arkarian said we all meet our soul-mates at least once in our lives. It's up to us to recognize each other, or we'll miss out on true love.'"
-Isabel, The Key (189) by Marianne Curley
~ ~ ~
A bat fluttered across the window, hardly standing out against the darkening sky. For some reason, this particular bat had strayed from the group, which was most likely circling the Great Hall. But Neville wouldn’t know. He sat in the deserted dormitory, staring out the window. Halloween had never been his favorite holiday, anyway. What did he care if he missed the feast? He scooted closer to the window, squinting. The flickering lights in the Great Hall were just visible from where he had been sitting.
A light knock on the door made him jump.
“How come you’re not at the feast?” Ginny asked, pushing open the door.
“I could ask the same for you,” Neville said curtly.
“Look.” Ginny sat down at the edge of his bed. “You’ve been like this since the funeral.”
Neville turned away, biting his lip.
“You need to cheer up. You’re not being fair to yourself. C’mon!” She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him up to standing. “We can go down to the feast and have a good time.”
“I don’t want to,” Neville said, sitting back down and crossing his arms stubbornly. “You go to the feast and have a good time.”
“I’m not going,” Ginny said, just as stubbornly as Neville, if not more, “unless if you do.” She crossed her arms and sat back down on his bed next to him. She stuck out her chin, as a young child might, and crossed her legs. She laughed quietly to herself before sharing her new idea. “Hey, we could go down to the kitchens and have our own feast up here!”
Her laugher ran through Neville ears as he furrowed his brow thoughtfully. She thought of it as some sort of joke, but it was actually a pretty good idea. “Okay!” he said enthusiastically.
Ginny, a little bit surprised by this, raised her eyebrows, before letting her face slide into a radiant grin. “Great!” she exclaimed, hopping up and clapping her hands together. “C’mon, we don’t want to get caught. The faster we go the less in trouble we’ll be if we do.”
Once they had scuttled out of the common room, Ginny suddenly dived behind a rather large tapestry. Neville followed, utterly confused. “What was that for?”
“The enemy was approaching!” Ginny half whispered, half shouted like a little kid playing pretend.
Neville blinked and peaked out of the tapestry. There was nothing there. “What are you talking about? I don’t see anything.”
Ginny punched him lightly on the shoulder playfully. “You know I was just trying to make you do something, besides waddling behind me all depressed and such. C’mon, there is a passageway behind this tapestry.” She flashed him with a toothy grin. “There is a method to my madness, you know.”
“Really?” Neville pretended to be shocked. “Well, give me a piece of parchment, I better owl the Prophet!”
“Shut up!” Ginny laughed and pushed one of the stones in the walls while muttering a simple charm. The wall did nothing, but Ginny still beckoned him forward. She stuck her head through the wall. “It’s all clear!” she informed him, letting the rest of her body follow.
Neville simply stared. He had seen this kind of magic before, of course, at Platform 9 ¾, but he would never had suspected that they had an enchanted wall like that at the school.
Ginny’s head popped back out, and she raised her eyebrows at him. “Well come on, then!” And again, she disappeared into the wall.
Neville followed, laughing to himself and shaking his head. He was being stupid, Hogwarts had hidden passageways all over the school; why was this one any different? Sheepishly, he followed Ginny into the passage. The only sources of light were small sky lights in the ceiling, letting in the moonlight every few feet. They began to descend the steep staircase, and the sky lights were quickly replaced with dimly glowing candles. As they got closer and closer to the dungeons, the temperature dropped steadily, causing Neville to shiver slightly; he could see goose-bumps on the back of Ginny’s neck. Finally, a door came into view.
Thank G-d, Neville thought, wiping his forehead off with his sleeve. He was getting slightly claustrophobic in the cramped corridor. The door looked like it was snatched out of the Middle Ages and placed clumsily in the school. Neville could have sworn that it was crooked. “Okay,” Ginny said, turning back to him. “For some reason, the door locks, and we can’t go back up this way. We’ll have to go normally.”
Neville nodded as Ginny opened the door and snuck out. He followed as quietly as he could. They were in a spacious corridor, which was a relief to Neville. Massive paintings lined the walls, making Neville feel very small. He thought that they were heading towards the end of the corridor, and was very surprised when Ginny stopped in front of a painting of a fruit bowl. She stood on tip toes and reached a hand up. The pear giggled as Ginny tickled it. Neville could have sworn his jaw hit the floor as the painting swung forward to reveal the school kitchens.
He had never been in the kitchen before. It was massive, even bigger than the Great Hall. He fought the urge to shout “HELLO!” and listen to it echo off of the highly polished walls. “How did you found out about all of this?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
But before she could answer, seven house-elves dashed up to them, asking - practically begging - if they wanted anything. “Yes please!” Ginny announced, flashing Neville an apologetic look that seemed to tell him she’d tell him in a second. “We would like… two turkey legs, a good amount of butterbeer and pumpkin juice, mashed potatoes, fudge… anything else, Neville?”
“Er…” Neville watched half of the house-elves scatter off excitedly to prepare their meal. “Pumpkin pie?”
“Yes sir!” a particularly tiny house-elf squeaked, and ran off with such enthusiasm that he tripped over his overly large feet and fell into a bowl of some sort of punch.
In a matter of minutes, the house-elves had assembled their meal all packed in baskets. “Hmm…” Ginny placed a finger to her chin as she stared at the baskets thoughtfully. “That’s a lot to carry.” She took out her wand and pointed them at a few of the baskets. “Wingardium Leviosa!” A few of the baskets levitated a three feet in the air, and she steered them in front of her.
Neville did the same, and bid his thanks to the house-elves. “So,” he said, once they were out of the kitchens. “How did you learn all of that?”
“You forget where I grew up,” Ginny said with a sly smile. “Fred and George told me about the kitchens in my first year, and they told me about that passageway last year right before they left.”
Neville nodded. “That makes sense,” he muttered.
“I would wonder,” a sharp voice cut made them stop dead in their tracks, “why the two of you are not at the Halloween feast. Surely, it is one of the most anticipated feasts all term?”
Snape stood before them, one eyebrow raised in an intimidating arch. Neville nearly dropped his basket. He stuttered for a few seconds, until Ginny stepped on his foot hard, shutting him up immediately.
“Well,” Ginny said calmly, “neither of us were up to going to the feast.” She smiled innocently. There’s nothing wrong with it, is there?”
Snape’s lip curled, and Neville swore he saw his fists shake with anger. “Very well,” he hissed, letting his eyebrow rejoin with one another. “But, where did you get that food? Surely, it did not appear before you.” He turned to Neville, sneering.
“Well, we-” Neville began stuttering once again, until Ginny stomped on his foot. She knew that he wasn’t very good at dealing with Snape, and she could keep her cool for much longer.
“My mum sent it in the post,” she lied quickly.
“And it’s still hot?”
“It was a simple spell to reheat it.”
Neville was very impressed with Ginny, and he was about to leave, when Snape hissed, “Liar.”
Ginny bit her lip before continuing to make up her story. “No, I’m not lying,” she insisted.
“I know you’re lying. I could suspend both of you for lying to a head of house, but-” he paused dramatically, giving Neville and Ginny time to exchange glances. “But I think a detention or two will do for both of you. In my office after dinner until the end of the week.”
Hurriedly, Ginny and Neville left, trying to stifle their laughter. Once they had reached the common room, they both doubled over with laughs. “Do you realize,” Neville began, straitening up, “that he gave us detention at the same time?”
“He has no idea what he got into,” Ginny said with a smirk. She picked up half of the baskets and took it over to a small table in between two extremely large arm chairs. She sunk into one of them, closely followed by Neville who brought the other half of the baskets.
“This was a great idea,” he said, taking out his turkey leg and taking a healthy sized bite out of it.
“’Fanks!” Ginny said while devouring her own turkey leg.
The fire crackled and danced in the fire place as the two of them continued to enjoy their makeshift feast. It was better than all of the feasts that Neville could remember in all of his days at Hogwarts. They were about to start on the pumpkin pie and fudge, when the portrait hole opened, and both of them stared straight at each other. There goes the perfect evening… Neville couldn’t help think bitterly.
Hermione ran in, bushy hair in a giant mass as she ran by Neville and Ginny, up to the girls’ dorms. The door slammed, and the windows seemed to quiver with its force. “I better go find out what happened,” Ginny said, her eyebrows raised.
“Yeah,” Neville agreed as Ginny stood up and ran after Hermione.
He knew what happened right away. He recognized those tears, the disappointment on her face; Harry had dumped her. Her heart had been torn in two by someone she loved and trusted. That feeling was only too familiar to Neville. But, he realized, now that she was free, he suddenly felt the same way Hermione had felt about him: they were friends, only friends; it just wasn’t meant to be. He felt himself getting colder, somehow empty and hollow. He had spent so long trying to get Hermione to understand how he felt, and now it was all wasted.
“I talked to Hermione,” Ginny whispered, quietly coming down the stairs and sitting down next to Neville. She looked down at her lap and sighed. “Harry dumped her.”
“Yeah,” Neville muttered, and after being shot a curious look by Ginny, explained, “I could kind of tell…” While Ginny just stared at him, he wondered why Harry felt like he had to end it… They seemed so perfect for each other. They complimented each other in every way. “I don’t know… I thought it would last forever, but her face just made it so obvious.”
“Poor Hermione,” Ginny exclaimed, ringing her hands together. “I feel so bad for her…”
“Yeah…”
~ ~ ~
It was far after Ginny had gone up to bed. All of the Gryffindors had already filed out of the feast and were safely in their dorms, nursing a stomach ache or out cold from stuffing themselves with food. Neville had returned to the common room, and was running a finger lazily over a dusty, neglected chair in the corners of the common room. Boredom was overtaking him, as he stared at the fire place, now only filled with small embers slowly fading away. With a sigh, he pushed the portrait hole open, and stopped dead when the Fat Lady spoke.
“What are you doing out at this hour?” she asked sharply.
Neville kept the back of his head to her, making sure that she wouldn’t be able to see who he was. With a deep breath, he began running, and turned sharply to the marble staircase. He could have sworn he saw Mrs. Norris on his way down, but heard no mewing behind him, so shook it off. Finally, he saw the Great Hall and slowed down, holding a stitch in his side. As he crept into the hall, he stopped when he saw another figure circling the Ravenclaw table as though she was gliding.
“Neville?” It was Luna Lovegood; he would recognize that voice anywhere. Losing her grace, she did a little half trot over to him. “What are you doing here? It’s far after hours, you know.”
Neville raised his eyebrows as he saw a prefect badge pinned to her robe. “Y-you’re a prefect?” he asked, amazed that he hadn’t noticed it before.
“Yeah,” she half sighed. “I don’t know why. Maybe Dumbledore wanted to make people respect me more, or something.”
Neville shrugged, sitting on the top of the Gryffindor table, running his hand over what appeared to be a tic tak toe came that somebody had carved into the aged wood. “Maybe,” he said distantly. “So, why are you down here?”
“Patrolling… I guess you would say,” Luna said with a laugh.
She continued to talk, and Neville just nodded along, unable to follow anything she was saying. She had always been rather odd, in his eyes, but a great loneliness was filled when he was with her. But he felt that way with Ginny also. He sighed and muttered a simple, “Yeah” as Luna asked his opinion on something that he had never heard about. Something was different about Luna though; well, she was different in general. The gap of loneliness she filled was different than the gap that Ginny filled. For a moment, he thought he should wear one of those “mind the gap” signs that you see at Muggle underground stations.
“Neville?” Luna tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and Neville jumped about half a foot in the air.
“What?”
“I told you I was about to go to bed, you might want to go also before--”
Hurried footsteps were coming closer… “Hide!” Luna hissed to him.
Without having to be told twice, Neville hopped under the table. In no less than three seconds, he realized that he was still very visible, and pulled out his wand. Searching through all of the spells he knew, he finally decided upon a shadow charm. With a simple incantation and a wave of his wand, he became cloaked in darkness.
Boom! The doors of the Great Hall crashed open and Professor Snape strode in with an air of a younger sibling who has caught their older sibling with sneaking out of the house. “Where is he!” he demanded.
“Who?” Luna asked in her usual dreamy voice.
“You know who! Longbottom! I heard you talking to him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luna insisted, moving her attention to a beetle in the corner of the room. “I was just humming to myself, while I was finishing patrolling here. I was about to go to the common room when you came in.”
“Don’t you lie to--”
“Tha’ you, Snape?” Hagrid appeared in the doorway, his large frame taking up almost the entire thing. Snape didn’t even turn to him, but stared intently at Luna, lips quivering with anger. “Scoot out, Snape, she didn’ do anything wrong.”
Snape turned to Hagrid, eyebrows raised. “A student is hiding in here after hours. We need to catch him and punish him for breaking the rules.”
“Where’s this student yer talkin’ ‘bout?” Hagrid asked, making sure he towered over Snape. “I don’ see anybody ‘ere, do you, Luna?” Luna shook her head, causing blonde strands of hair to stick up in odd directions. “See, Snape, nothing ‘ere. Now--” he straightened his coat importantly “--like I said, yer might wanna scoot outa ‘ere. Early start tomorrow.”
With a sneer, Snape turned on his heel and left the Great Hall, his overly large nose pointed towards the ceiling. Once the door slammed behind them, and Snape’s footsteps died away, he turned to the table that Neville was hiding under. “Okay, Neville, yeh can come out now.”
Neville pushed himself out from under the table with raised eyebrows. “How did you know I was there?” he asked, dusting his robes off.
“I’m not tha’ easily fooled, yeh know,” Hagrid informed him. “C’mon, you can come with me ter me cabin.” He turned to Luna. “Yeh can come too, ‘f’ya want, Luna.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s okay, thanks,” she said vaguely without any explanation of why.
“Er, righ’” Hagrid put his hand on Neville shoulder and began to lead him out of the Great Hall.
They reached his cabin, Neville’s knees quivering from the weight of Hagrid’s hand. Neville sat down in the same old arm chair as he had the previous visit and fiddled with a hole in his sweatshirt.
Hagrid sat down opposite him again, and offered some sort of baked food that Neville could not recognize. Not wanting to be rude, he reached out and took one. He took a rather small bite, but felt one of his teeth begin to loosen, so put it down quickly and stared at Hagrid, as though waiting for him to explain why he brought him out here.
“Well,” Hagrid started, nibbling on one of his own muffin, or scone, or something of the sort. “I’ve noticed ‘at yer’ve been feelin’ lots better lately.”
“Yeah?” Neville raised his eyebrows, and tapped his fingers on the piece of food. “Well, I’ve been talking to Ginny a lot lately and--”
“But,” Hagrid interrupted, “yer not listenin’ to me and what I told yer a’fore. S’only been a month, and yer actin’ like nothing happened!”
Neville flushed a deep shade of maroon. “Nothing did happen,” he shouted almost tearfully. “As far as I care, nothing happened. Nothing has changed. I’m fine now, and this is how I like it!”
“Yer not fine!” Hagrid replied calmly. “Yer just pushing it to the back o’ yer mind! S’gonna come back an’ haunt yeh soon if yeh don’ confront it! I knew yer’d do this; s’why I warned yer about it earlier!” He stared down at his lap and let his hands fall, resigned, into it. “Take it from someone who knows,” he added quietly. “The truth hurts, bu’ you ‘ave to confront it. Ye’ can’t change some things like this. Yeh can’t change anything that happens. If yer can realize what’s hurtin’ you can fix it. Numbin’ the pain’ll only make it worse when it comes back… tha’s what Dumbledore says… wise man.”
Standing up, Neville clenched his fist. His scone (he had decided it resembled a scone most) fell to the floor and clattered under the table loudly, where Fang sniffed wearily at it. He had completely lost his temper for the first time in quite a long time. “You think I need your help!” he shouted, fists shaking with rage. “Why does everybody think I need their help?! Nobody goes around stalking Harry about his problems! I can deal with what I’ve been given! I obviously can because whoever handed it to me knew I could handle it! I don’t need all of your damn advice!”
Hagrid, obviously taken aback by this, didn’t say anything. He just stared at Neville with raised eyebrows. Without another word, Neville ran out of the cabin, clutching his wand before him.
The forest loomed over him; trees were bent in a slight arch from all of the storms that had been coming through. They looked as though they were beckoning him forward. “Lumos!” His wand illuminated the vague path before him, and he carefully stepped into the darkness of the wood.
He had been in the forest before of course, but only in his first year when he had gotten a particularly nasty detention with Harry, Hermione and Malfoy. The wind blew through the trees, causing almost a whisper to creep around him. If he concentrated hard enough, he could have sworn he could almost make words out of the eerie whispers.
As he rounded a corner, he stopped for a moment, examining what appeared to be hoof prints on the ground. They led farther and farther into the forest, off of the trail. Ignoring his better judgment, he followed the hoof prints through the bushes and trees, getting plenty of cuts and bruises on the way. After nearly twenty minutes of aimless wandering, he stumbled out of the trees and bushes, and into a clearing. Except, the clearing wasn’t just an empty space. A fire was smoldering in the middle of the clearing surrounded by…
Neville took a step backwards, his eyes growing wide. This wasn’t the best time for him to run into a clan of centaurs.
“What are you doing here?” A centaur, with black hair long enough to brush the spot where his human torso merged with his horse body approached. “This is our land and you are not welcome on it.” He kicked up some dirt with his hoof. “You are lucky that you are still a fawn,” he said, turning his back to him. Neville as puzzled by this crossed his arms stubbornly. “Or we would be much more drastic about this.”
“I-I’m not leaving the forest,” Neville said firmly. “I’ll leave this area if you like, but I have the same right to wander the forest as you do.”
The centaur scoffed loudly, before turning around and kicking up dirt into Neville’s face behind him. He galloped off into the trees, and Neville, for one blissful moment, thought he had won. Before he could celebrate his victory by continuing to venture through the forest, the centaur came back out of the mass of trees, followed by another centaur.
This other centaur was rather bizarre; Neville had never seen any centaur quite like this one. His hair was a deep auburn with gray streaks running through it. The fur on his horse half was nearly silver, and he had a small goatee the exact same color. Age lagged his face into wrinkles that seemed to bounce as he spoke. “Human!” he said forcefully. Neville was rather surprised at the strength of his voice. He had expected him to have a raspy old voice, but instead it was strong and clear like a bell. “Leave! We have already warned you! Don’t make us force you.”
“He would not listen to me, Cathicias.” The first centaur said, with a sharp glare down at Neville. “He says it’s as much of his right to be here, than ours.”
The old centaur called Cathicias bucked violently. “What!” he roared. He didn’t even look at Neville and turned sharply to the younger centaur. “Magorian, he has already lost all of his respect. He does not deserve the gift of life that we were about to give.” In a swift movement, Cathicias turned around and began galloping away sharply into the trees where he came. Neville swallowed hard and stared into Magorian’s unmerciful face.
“The leader of the centaurs says you are not worthy of our gift.” He raised a hand in the air.
In an instant, centaurs came pouring out of the trees. There were women, men and children all circling Neville and Magorian. In a slight panic, Neville took out his wand and pointed it towards the sky to protect himself. With as much force as he could muster, he let an extremely loud BANG shoot out of his wand like a canon. The centaurs rioted, the children bucked angrily, while the adults smashed on the ground loudly with their hooves.
“This is not your place!” one wheezy old centaur shouted. The other centaurs yelled their agreements.
“It’s just as much my place as it is yours!” Neville responded, pointing his wand at the old centaur who had yelled at him.
“No it’s not!” a centaur that looked around the age of twenty said, more calmly than the others. He stepped to a spot where Neville could see him. He had short blonde hair in a sort of bob, and eyes the color of sapphires. “Your place is written in the stars with Harry Potter!”
Neville stopped, and let arm drop limply at his side. “What?” he asked incredulously.
But before he could get his answer, the children centaurs galloped towards him. The blonde haired, blue eyed centaur soon went out of view as the miniature centaurs tackled him and began to smack him with their hooves, shouting at him and screeching.
“GERROFF!” he shouted, trying to throw one of them off of him. A hoof smashed into his jaw, and he heard a satisfying crack, to tell him that his jaw was broken. He was now on his knees, covering his head as not to be killed by their blows. His surroundings were blacking in and out, hardly able to keep himself conscious.
A large figure appeared before him and everything completely blacked out.
~ ~ ~
Light came vaguely into view, as Neville’s eyes fluttered open. Everything was more or less a large blur moving around a large room. He noticed that he was lying on his back, and was covered with a blanket and a pair of uncomfortable, itchy pajamas. I must be in the hospital wing, he decided, rubbing his eyes. Once everything came into focus, he was, in fact, in the hospital wing, tucked tightly into one of the awkwardly sized beds.
“Don’t do that, dear,” Madam Pomfrey said, gently pushing Neville’s hands away from his face. “I need to do something about that nasty bruise, and I can’t if your hands are in the way.”
She put a cloth with some sort of orange paste smothered on it against his face and dabbed it until she pulled away a considerably less orange cloth. Neville winced as it began to do whatever job it was supposed to do. It didn’t exactly hurt, but if felt very bizarre, as it began to mend the large bruise on his face.
Madam Pomfrey turned around and stared directly at Hagrid, who was sitting on one of the beds which looked like it might collapse any second now under the weight. “So,” she said sharply, “you say that your dog got a little over excited to see him?” Hagrid blinked at Neville, who got the message right away. Play along. “I highly doubt a dog could do that.”
“Yeah,” Hagrid said, scratching his chin under his heavily matted beard. “Fang’s a bit o’ work.”
Madam Pomfrey turned to Neville with raised eyebrows. “Is this true?”
“Er, yeah,” Neville lied quickly. “I came in with some food in my pockets, and Fang just got really excited. He is a very big dog.”
“Well, I suppose that’s a believable story.” She put down the cloth and began to bustle towards another student who had apparently gotten on Moaning Myrtle’s bad side.
Once Neville was sure that Madam Pomfrey wasn’t paying attention, he sat up and turned to Hagrid. “Er, Hagrid,” he began trying as hard as he could not to look like a total jerk, “do you know what time it is?”
“S’November second,” Hagrid said matter-of-factly. “Four o’clock.”
“What!” Neville’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious! I’ve been out cold for a day?!”
“Well-” Hagrid lowered his tone “-them centaurs’ll beat the life outa yeh, if yeh let ‘em.”
“W-was it you who saved me?” Neville asked after a long pause.
“I s’pose yeh could say ‘at. I don’ think it was really savin’ yer. Jus’ told ‘em to lay off.” Neville noticed that Hagrid was nursing a rather nasty cut along his left arm.
“Neville!” For a moment, Neville’s eyes went unfocused, and all he could see was a mass of red hair bobbing towards him; he knew at once it was Ginny. “Neville, we were so worried about you!” His eyes came back into focus, and he noticed Luna was standing there behind him, looking as though she had no idea why or how she had been dragged here. “After I saw you in the hospital wing out cold, and with that bruise!” She pointed to the orange paste on his face. “Oh I’m so glad you’re up!” She made tentative moves towards him, but then stopped, staring at the ground awkwardly. “I guess a hug would kind of hurt wouldn’t it?”
But before Neville could answer, Luna piped up, “I knew you would be okay-” a wispy smile appeared across her face “-after the last few divination lessons.”’
Ginny snorted with laughter, and someone else’s laughter joined in. Hermione came bustling through with her hands on her hips. “Divination,” she told Luna, rather coldly, “is a load of rubbish. I don’t know why Dumbledore is allowing it to still be taught.
And they continued talking like that for what seemed like hours. Neville just let his mind wander, deciding that he’d use the excuse of dozing off if anybody asked him about it. There he was with the three girls who probably impacted his life most. Confusion swept over him like a tidal wave and he let his eyes close.
“Well,” Ginny’s voice cut his thoughts short. “I’m sure you both have a lot of homework.”
“Oh no,” Luna said with a far away glimmer in her eyes. “I don’t have much at all.”
“And I did almost all of mine yesterday during my breaks.”
The corners of Neville’s mouth began twitching as he tried to hide a smile. That had always been Ginny’s excuse when she wanted somebody to leave. “Hey, you guys?” he said, in as sickly as a voice as possible. “I’m starting to feel a little woozy, could you do me a favor and let me rest?”
“Oh of course!” Hermione nodded firmly. “Yes, come on Ginny, Luna.”
“Actually,” Neville interrupted. “I kind of wanted to ask Ginny something. It won‘t be long.”
Hermione seemed a little taken aback by this, but instead of fighting, she resigned and began to walk out of the hospital wing importantly with Luna behind her.
“Thanks,” Ginny said, awkwardly putting her hands in her pockets, and then taking them out again as though unsure of why she had them in the first place.
“Well, I know you. I know when you want to get somebody out.”
“Yeah…” she said, almost as vaguely as Luna. “Yeah, you know me really well. That’s sort of like what I wanted to talk to you about.” She took a deep would-be-calming breath, but exhaled it far to fast. “Well, I mean, ever since I met you I--I mean--well…” Another breath. “I thought that we--”
“Nev!” Harry and Ron strode through the doorway, still caring their book bags.
Ginny blushed a light pink and bit her lip.
“We came to see you after we heard what happened!” Harry said, waving his hands to make sure Neville recognized him.
“Or really didn’t hear what happened,” Ron added. “Nobody in the school knows why you were out cold for a day.”
“It was Fang,” Neville said hurriedly. “Got excited and knocked me down.”
Harry and Ron exchanged glances. Neville knew that they both knew that Fang would never do anything of the sort. He raised his eyebrows at them, giving them the same message that Hagrid had given him.
“Right you lot!” Madam Pomfrey came bustling back. “This boy needs his rest! Have you not seen that bruise on his face? Go on!” She shoed them out the door and shut it with a loud bang before turning to Neville. “Go on, get some rest.”