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A gust of wind blew around the castle, as the air filled with the looming tension of war. You had just come out of the Room of Requirement, where you changed out of your school robes into non-restricting trousers and a sweater. Even with the sweater, that you happened to “take” from Neville, you feel shivers go down your spine. You always thought battles were the worst part of war, but the anticipation and the constant fear feels absolutely unbearable. As you walk towards the nearest staircase, you see groups of friends huddle up closely together, preparing for the upcoming battle. A few house-elves skid around the corner with brave smiles, the corner of their mouths twitching with uneasiness. Needless to say, everyone is crippled with anxiety, whether they show it or not.
Teachers and staff run by you, scattering all around the castle to cast protective spells around the premises. The gust that they leave behind toys with your hair a bit, making your hand reach out to put that one annoying strand of hair behind your ear. When you lower your arm, you realize the slight quivering in your hands. You stare at your shaking fingers, forgetting the depressing atmosphere just for a moment – until a distant yell makes you zone back in.
Circling on the heel of your foot, you turn to watch fellow students hugging each other. It makes you feel a tinge of envy, as you begin to crave the comfort of your friends and boyfriend. You wonder where they are and how you would find them in this crowd of scared students. You start to gravitate towards the Great Hall, as you think that the Hall would be a logical place to start your search. You quickly glide through the hallways, barely noticing the slight clopping of your shoes on the stony floors of Hogwarts.
A group of what seems like 5th years rush past you, talking loudly at each other, discussing their positions in the battle. “Percival, you take the Left Wing with Astrid. Just try not to suck each other’s faces whilst you’re at it!” a scrawny boy bellows at his friends, whilst the girl of the group yells: “We’re in the middle of a war, Greg!” An involuntary smile makes its way to your face as their conversation makes you think of the conversations you had with your friends and the constant teasing you and Neville got every day. These memories only strengthen your desire to find your friends, so you pick up the pace, practically running into the Great Hall.
Once you were at the doors of the Hall, you stop to catch your breath. You were never an athletic one, preferring the limited motion of studying from books. A sight of a broken window - through which Snape apparated through - and a crowd of students greet you, and you recognize familiar faces on the far right. Neville, you think to yourself, as your eyes are met with the cardigan he’s currently sporting – the one you remember trying on not long ago.
You toss dirty clothes at your sleeping boyfriend, who is roused from his slumber when his dirty pair of knickers hits his cheek. “What on earth- (Y/N), love, are you sorting out my clothes again?” he groans, as he props himself up on his left elbow. “I swear you did that just yesterday!” You continue to sort out his clothes; he had a bad habit of mixing his dirty laundry with his clean clothes.
“Correction: the day before. And it’s not my fault that you become a slob every time you happen to stay with me!” your face contorts into a small smirk, signalling him of your playful mood.
“Ah, I see how it is,” he murmurs, and as you turn your back on him, you feel hands sneak around your waist. You hear yourself squeal, as Neville’s strong arms lift you up abruptly and carry you to the bed.
“Neville!” you exclaim, but to no avail: he is already attacking your sides with his vicious fingers. Your sweet giggles and bursts of laughter meet his ears, and he has a large, toothy grin plastered on his face. Once you start begging him to stop, his fingers leave your sides and he walks to the heap of laundry.
“As much as I love you, I do think that I can handle my laundry all on my own,” he says with a smile.
“Oh, is that so? Are you a big boy?” you tease him, and he lets out a laugh. You watch him sort out his clothes into neat colour-coded piles: white, black, blue, grey… Only until he starts sorting his mixed coloured clothes, you notice the new addition in his wardrobe. “What’s that?” you ask, pointing at the multi-variegated cardigan with various patterns. It was absolutely stunning in your eyes.
“This? I found it in a closet back home. Probably one of Dad’s old pieces,” Neville replies, this time with a slightly uneasy smile. It was never quite easy for him to talk about his parents. You rise from the bed and walk towards him.
“Can I try it on?” you ask, slightly holding out your hand. He opens the cardigan instead and slips it on you. The material was a soft wool, the neatly knitted patterns adorning your arms. You think of how similar Neville is to his father, for both of them seem to have devilishly long arms. The sleeves of the cardigan went well over your fingers. You gather the leftover material around your palms and pose in front of your boyfriend. “Well, what do you think?”
Neville plays along, pretending to be a fashion expert by placing his thumb on his chin. He circles you once, before concluding: “You look amazing.” His comment makes a faint bit of colour appear on your cheeks, and it only intensifies when he gathers your face in his palms. Finally, he presses his lips against yours, giving them a small peck.
You take long strides and soon you reach your friend group. Once he sees you, Neville instinctively wraps his arms around you to bring you close. “You’re back,” he murmurs into your hair. You wrap your arms around him, which earns a slight groan from your closest friends. Even at the brink of war they have the sense of humour to tease you.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” you tell him and your friends once you break from the embrace. You listen to them discuss strategy, and your eyes wonder from face to face. Each of your friends holds an expression of uneasiness, detectable only from the curve of their mouth and worry in their eyes. You start to wonder if these will be your last moments together, for the war will surely cause major damage to the the student body as well as the school. You try not to think about your friends losing their lives in the worst way possible, but you cannot deny that this battle would not cost lives.
A touch from your left brings you back to reality, and you find Neville studying you. His face is etched with worry, but it slightly dissolves into the smile that he directs at you. “How’re you feeling?” he inquires, while caressing your hand with his thumb. You were too much in your thoughts to notice when he began to hold your hand. It didn’t matter though; you find his touch comforting.
“I’m fine. I can’t help but notice that this may be it for some people, even us.” The impending war has deeply affected your thoughts and caused you to rearrange your values. You realised you wanted to be with Neville for the rest of your life and couldn’t even bear the thought of losing him. Your tendency of overthinking often prepared you for the worst of things, but losing him? You couldn’t begin to produce any sort of backup plan for that.
“I know the feeling. I’m starting to feel like there’s no hope, you know?” Neville breathed out, letting out a small sigh at the end. Your eyes widened with incredulity. Neville losing hope? You felt like the breath got knocked out of you, as you couldn’t help but stare at him with your mouth slightly agape.
Ever since you started dating Neville, he became a sort of beacon of hope in your life. He shone light in places that you didn’t know were in darkness. You always felt like he made everything brighter with his smile, his intelligence and his overall presence, really. No, Neville wasn’t a person sworn to optimism; he had his bad days and hopeless times. However, he always had the ability of bringing people back into reality and a knack for pointing out the positive aspects of life. Hearing him speak of losing hope in such a way made you feel a new sense of dread, because if Neville wasn't hopeful, who would be?
“Hey now, darling. There’s always hope when there’s people who believe and fight for what they believe,” you tell him, while taking both of his hands in yours and holding on to them tightly. “You just need something to look forward to… a reason to fight, yeah?” His ever-glossy eyes look into yours, and you almost sense the wheels turning in his head. His expression turns blank for a moment, and you lean into a him in a questioning manner. “Neville?”
Slowly, he zones back into the moment and he gazes at you with a unidentifiable look. A soft yet nervous smile graces upon his lips, and you can’t help but return it with slight confusion.
“Alright,” he says nervously, “if I survive, will you- will you marry me?” His thumbs go back to caressing your hands. "Of course, assuming that you'd be alive as well," he tries to joke with an attempt to lighten the load of the question. You can't help but notice that his voice is laced with anxiety as he waits upon your answer. You see his gaze switch from one of your eyes to the other, a slight glimmer of hope in his eyes.
You’d be lying if you said you haven’t thought about this moment before. You honestly thought the question would shock you, but to your surprise, it almost feels natural. You know you want this; you want to spend the rest of your life with Neville, no matter how long it would last. You take in a breath, and breath out a squeaky “yes”. Clearing your throat, you clarify: “Yes – yes, of course I’ll marry you.”
You practically watch him bloom, for the grin on Neville’s face is absolutely blinding; you almost wonder if it will ever stop growing. He snakes his arms around your waist, and like many other times, he lifts you up and twirls you around a few times. An unearthly laugh escapes his lips, and just by hearing it you burst out laughing. The laughter is so odd that your friends, who have long ago moved farther away from you to give the two of you privacy, check to see that you are okay. However, they begin to smile when they see you happy, for happiness in such a situation is a rare and beautiful thing.
“You better come back to me, Nev,” you threaten him with a smile, making him place a long, heartfelt kiss on your mouth. He smiles at you afterwards with that heart-melting smile of his. Wrapping his arms around you, he replies softly:
“Likewise, love.”