Neville walked through the destroyed corridors in a trance-like state. The bodies had been recovered, the remaining Death Eaters detained, the wounded hospitalized. In the Great Hall there was mourning and celebration colliding simultaneously, but out here in the corridors an eerie silence had taken over. Pieces of rubble and gaping holes in the stone floors made the place hard to recognize as the same wonderful castle that had left him in awe when he was still just a child.

Just a child.

If this year had been like any other, he might still be considered a child. But this war had quickly made all those innocent children into men and women, into warriors.

It shocked him to think that after all of these years of calling this castle home; he had never wandered off to explore all of its wonderful towers and corridors. Now that he finally had the courage to do so, the castle was gone. Nothing but a war zone was left in its place.

He briefly considered going to the greenhouses, but knew that it would do him no good to see them too, destroyed.

He shouldn’t be so upset about this, he knew. He hadn’t lost his grandmother and St.Mungo’s, with what was left of his parents, was intact. Who was he mourning then? Since he hadn’t yet gone to investigate who hadn’t made it through the battle alive, why was he suffering from this feeling of loss?

Soon, he realized that he wasn’t mourning someone. He was mourning something. He was mourning happier days, days of innocence, when his biggest problems were his classmates teasing, when his biggest pressures were studying for Potions exams, when what made him nervous was forming coherent words around girls.

He mourned the time when he stuttered, not because he liked sounding like a blubbering idiot, but because he had had the time to stutter. Because no one’s life depended on delivering a message promptly and no one’s hope hung on the sound of confidence in his voice.

A flash of blonde hair broke into his trance. As was to be expected, she was doing something unexpected. Crouched down among the rubble, she seemed to be dusting something off and placing it into a small pouch, “Luna?”

She looked up, not at all startled. “Hullo Neville,” she said, not in her usual cheery voice, but in a more determined tone that he wasn’t quite familiar with, but that he rather liked all the same.

“Why aren’t you in the Great Hall with everyone else?” he asked while she crouched down once more to pick up something else.

“I’ve got no one to mourn or celebrate with,” she answered, once again placing something into her pouch.

He noticed her hand tremble as she locked (tied?) up her pouch once more, and he crouched down beside her, “Watcha doing, Luna?” he asked softly.

“I’m picking up what they left behind,” she mumbled.

“Who?”

“The ones that can’t come pick it up,” she answered in a whispered tone.

She checked through the dust in that spot of the floor once more and dusted her hands. Neville helped her up and wrapped an arm around her small frame. “Where’s your father?”

Luna sighed, “Kingsley is speaking with him; Father was horrible during the war.”

Neville nodded and decided that it would be best to let the issue go. “So what have you found so far?”

She patted her small pouch, “A couple of chains, some amulets, and a handkerchief.”

There was silence for a while as they walked together down the ruined halls.

She stopped suddenly and sat down cross legged on the floor, “I’m glad it’s over,” she looked up and met his eyes, “You were very brave through it all, Neville. You were so strong.”

He knelt down next to her. “You were brave too.” She nodded, but she still looked downcast.

“Luna, is your dad in much trouble?”

“Yes,” she said. “He seems so different now; he would never have acted that way before.”

Neville hugged her again; it was what they had done throughout their time leading the resistance at Hogwarts. Ginny, she liked to be alone with her thoughts of Harry. But he and Luna liked each other’s company, liked the feeling of having someone to lean on, physically and metaphorically . When they knew that words would do nothing, they just hugged or place a soothing hand on the other’s shoulder.

Luna started crying then. Neville found it odd when he realized that he had never before seen Luna cry. She clawed frantically at his robes as if she was afraid that he’d leave. It was so unlike her, Luna, who always found the silver lining when one of her fantastical creatures disturbed her peace. If she couldn’t find the spot of sunlight in the shadows that had overcome them, how could he?