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The war has taught Neville many things: the efficacy of different healing potions; the sensation of being both yourself and not yourself as you torture a fellow student under imperius, floating in the liminal space you've been trapped in; the time it takes between hearing a twelve-year-old scream and finding them cornered next to a tapestry, like the space between a thunderclap and lightning. The war has taught Neville many things, and though he would like to credit the war with his awareness of Anthony Goldstein, he's more self-aware than that.
He's also self-aware enough to know that that kind of thing is a luxury he can't afford these days — perhaps last year he could have asked him to Hogsmeade, they would've clumsily fumbled behind the Hog's Head… But there was no point in dwelling on it.
(He can hear Ginny's voice in his head, as if he had shared these musings with her: "The Hog's Head? Bloody hell Nev, at least be classy enough to grope him in the Shrieking Shack.")
The point is that he notices when Anthony arrives in the Room of Requirement. He doesn't do anything about it — if he takes his eyes off his cauldron it will definitely explode or something, because he hasn't managed to improve his potions skills, even though lives depend on it.
For the last fifteen minutes he's brewing, he can see Ginny out of the corner of his eye clearly waiting for him to be done. She knows — everyone knows — that if Neville is brewing, he Cannot Be Disturbed for anything less than the arrival of Harry Fucking Potter. They had all learnt that the hard way, and Slughorn probably wouldn't replace his cauldron again.
This is not to say that Ginny just waits for him to be done, as if she were a wife waiting for her husband to return from war; rather, she does things but manages to do them while hovering at the edge of Neville's vision, occupied but also very clearly waiting to pounce the second he is free. At last, the potion turns a shimmering, pearlescent shade of azure and he wipes his forehead with his sleeve before turning to find Ginny.
"Why is Smith here?" she says, wasting no time. She points to Zacharias Smith, who is sitting next to Anthony and laughing at something Anthony's just said; Anthony is laughing too, gesturing with his hands though Neville can't ascertain the topic of conversation.
"I think he came in with Anthony?" Neville says, rummaging in the cupboard that had appeared when he realised several weeks ago that he'd need something to put completed potions in. He came up with three large corked phials and began decanting, almost chuckling at the idea of what Snape would say if he knew Neville could brew a potion without several catastrophic disasters and a trip to the hospital wing.
"We can't just let anyone in here," Ginny says, her face slowly growing redder to match her hair. "A single person says something to the wrong person and we're doomed. I thought you'd put rules in about who could come in?"
"I did! Anyone in the DA and anyone on our list of approved people. He was in the DA, so that's why he was allowed in."
Ginny pulls a face to tell Neville exactly what she thinks of that.
"We need all the help we can get, Gin. He's had the coin this whole time, so it's not like Anthony's done anything wrong. Have you found anyone to escort the Second Years to Potions tomorrow?"
And that's the end of the conversation. Ginny pulls out her copy of the rota for shepherding students between classes and by the time they've figured it all out, Neville barely has time to scribble out twelve inches on the uses of pigwort before he falls asleep, not even making it back to Gryffindor Tower.
He wakes around three with his DA coin burning a hole in his pocket, an insistent message asking if he's in danger. He replies in the negative and falls back asleep immediately.
And that's how it goes for… for however long. Time has a strange, slippery quality — every day is simultaneously an eternity (so many people to worry about, so many people to protect, so much bullshit to fight back against, so many judgements to be made in every moment: is this worth the detention he'll get for it? Is he better off saving his blood and his pain tolerance for something even more heinous that will happen in the afternoon?) and also… nothing. Time flies even as it feels like it's standing still — days all feel the same, a constant level of terror as he focuses on surviving, but somehow it's coming up to the winter break.
Zacharias becomes Anthony's shadow — or, as Ginny puts it, a limpet, constantly at his side whenever he's in the Room of Requirement. Which is fine, of course, because why wouldn't it be fine? They do need all the help they can get — a few kids have gone missing, now, which has made some of the more outspoken kids quiet down. Except Zacharias doesn’t actually help.
At first, Neville thinks it's just because no one had explained it to him — Anthony probably should have thought of it, but just getting through the day was hard enough, so Neville makes sure to remind everyone of the rotas pinned to the wall that shows who is escorting which house/year group to each class. It only goes up to Fourth Year because they just don't have the numbers — when they made it, Neville almost said "everyone else can take care of themselves", but the Fifth Years were still children. Neville is barely more than a child — he's been an adult for only a few months, though it's enough that he already feels responsible for every student in the school.
He makes the mistake of saying that once, and Ginny flicks him in the forehead before asking the ceiling why she always gets stuck with the stupid ones with saviour complexes. She then leaves the room, so Neville never gets the opportunity to ask what she means.
The point is that Zacharias doesn't help, not even when Neville asks if anyone is free to see the Hufflepuff First Years to Herbology. Neville has seen Zacharias's timetable (well, he knows what classes Zacharias takes and has seen Anthony and Susan's timetables, which is close enough) and he definitely has a free. He looks straight at Zacharias. Zacharias meets his eye.
Zacharias does not move.
When he expresses his frustrations to Ginny, she scoffs and asks why he ever thought different — “It’s Smith, after all,” she says with a twist to her mouth as if she’d caught the wind coming off the pumpkin patch just after Hagrid put down fertiliser. Neville can’t really pinpoint why he expected better of Zacharias, admittedly, and yet… and yet here he is.
“Then why does he come to meetings?” Neville asks, and he can see the mixture of pity and exasperation mingling on Ginny’s face.
“You’re smarter than that, Neville,” she says, and shakes her head before going back to her Transfiguration homework.
Neville is not sure she’s right, but attempts to work it out. It’s not until Zacharias next comes in that he realises with a jolt and feels utterly ridiculous that he didn’t see it earlier.
He always comes with Anthony.
He’s always looking at Anthony, as much as he can get away with, while Anthony isn’t looking. At first Neville thinks they’re already dating (what with Zacharias apparently not giving a single shit about anyone else, he probably has the emotional room to carry on a romantic relationship in the middle of this hellish year), but it becomes apparent that Zacharias is just a little… too much. A little too desperate, a little too cool.
This, of course, changes nothing. Neville cannot date Anthony; he cannot imagine when or how or with what reserve of fortitude he would make the advance, let alone carry on something for more than an afternoon. He would like to date Anthony in the future, though — a future free of Death Eaters and torture and danger.
It changes nothing until Anthony gets caught out alone. They’re meant to work on a buddy system, no one going anywhere by themselves, but with Susan and both the Patil twins in the hospital wing, they’ve been running short on people. Anthony had been the only one free to help the Second Years down to Potions, and Neville isn’t able to get a coherent story from the Second Years who come to tell him, but it sounds bad — when he checks his coin, Anthony has set it to SOS, indicating that the Second Years are right to think he’s still at the mercy of the fuckers who run this school.
Zacharias appears, less out of breath than Neville is, when Neville is waiting out a patrol behind the statue of Muriel the Magnanimous.
“Nice of you to finally do something,” Neville murmurs as Goyle finally disappears from view.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Zacharias has the gall to say, when he knows perfectly well that Neville has been pointing out the rota at every meeting specifically for his benefit.
“Doesn’t matter. Anthony’s probably in the spare Potions classroom — the one furthest from the stairs.”
“I go to this school too, I do know which one the spare Potions classroom is.”
Neville takes a moment to breathe. How Anthony has such poor taste he doesn’t know.
“We need to work together, alright? I know you’re just here because you fancy him, but I’ve actually done this before, so if you could get your head out of your arse long enough to listen to me—”
“You fancy him too,” Zacharias says in wonder, clearly not listening to the important information Neville is trying to impart. When Neville looks at him, he’s looking at Neville with surprise which quickly disappears under the permanent ‘I’m Zacharias Smith and giving a shit whether people live or die is not cool enough for me’ mask. The mask is somewhat spoilt by the black eye he received courtesy of backchatting a Carrow yesterday (as entertainment, Neville assumes).
“Bloody hell Smith, can we just please — they’re probably toying with him, so we’ve found the best thing to do in this situation is to stage multiple distractions so no one person gets caught, and Anthony has a chance to escape. First, we’ll have to see who’s holding him and how many there are, then we’ll retreat, I’ll send Anthony a message on the coin to let him know to make a break for it at first opportunity, and then we’ll both have to do some risky business on opposite sides of the castle.”
Zacharias nods, not interrupting Neville once, which Neville counts as a win.
“You’re actually willing to take a risk, right? The distraction doesn’t work if you’re totally safe the whole time.”
“What the fuck, yes, of course I am,” Zacharias says, pretending like Neville doesn’t have every reason in the world to doubt him. What a dickhead, ugh.
Calling Zacharias a dickhead won’t actually stop Anthony developing cruciatus tremors, though, so instead they hash out the distractions as they make their way down towards the dungeons, avoiding the patrols as they go — it’s before curfew, but the fewer people see them, the fewer people could potentially hex them for fun.
Neville remembers wandering the corridors freely, once.
They use one of Neville’s treasured extendable ears (contraband of the highest order, but being friends with Ginny Weasley has its perks) to determine that there’s only two people in there with Anthony, and no guards on the door; the torture session seems to be flagging, so it’s likely once they get word of other disturbances they’ll give up and let him go, rather than tie him up so he can’t escape. Perfect.
The coin is set, and Neville and Zacharias split up to go to the furthest places with escape routes they know of: Zacharias to the Astronomy Tower (there’s a loose window frame that can be lifted up and a broom is secured to the roof, ready for use) and Neville to the Seventh Floor, two corridors over from the Room of Requirement itself. The Carrows may have blocked off all the secret passages out of the school, but they can’t stop the castle creating unexpected passages to other parts of itself: many of the major passageways were blocked, at first, but the castle just created new ones. If those replacements were found and blocked, it was simply a matter of finding the ones that sprung up in their place.
Neville doubles back to the DA headquarters to get the bottle of new indelible ink, formula improved by Anthony himself as a response to the Carrows finally getting the last DA graffiti off the wall in the Fifth Floor corridor (it had stayed up for a whole week — much longer than any of their previous attempts). Usually they graffiti under the cover of darkness, but Neville is sure he can pull it off if he times it right and certain random factors go his way.
He’s only waiting for a few minutes before his window appears, and in enormous letters he writes with his wand: DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY STILL RECRUITING. He then says very loudly, “Peeves, no, that was my aunt’s brand new jumper!” and starts running.
Obviously, no one is going to believe that Peeves has done the graffiti. It’s actually to summon Peeves, who will then take great joy in spreading the news as quickly as possible. Peeves and the DA have come to an agreement, a somewhat uneasy alliance wherein Peeves will not interfere with DA activity (but individual DA members are still fair game at any other time) and will also, more often than not, deign to be summoned by DA members to do things like spread malcontent among their common enemy.
Neville is loath to rely on the poltergeist, but needs must.
After that, there’s nothing he can do but wait in the Room of Requirement, too useless with worry to consider brewing a potion or doing homework. After ten minutes, Zacharias turns up, out of breath, and gives him a thumbs up. Neville makes a note on the corkboard that they need to replace one of the Astronomy Tower emergency brooms — it’s probably best done at night, or at least once this has all calmed down.
It’s the longest twenty-six minutes of Neville’s life so far before Anthony stumbles in, holding his side and looking decidedly worse for wear. As the door opens, both Neville and Zacharias start towards it, but it’s Neville who reaches Anthony first: he was pacing the room, whereas Zacharias was curled up in an armchair, biting his fingernails ragged as he pretended to do his Arithmancy work.
“Are you alright? We ran a distraction as soon as we could — I’m glad you got out, did they let you go or—”
“Anth—” Zacharias was hovering behind him but clearly Neville is taking too long, and Zacharias interrupts and runs a hand gently down Anthony’s left arm, the one that’s not clutching his ribs. His touch is so gentle — for some reason Neville doesn’t expect it to be.
“I’m fine, Zach,” Anthony says, smiling in a way that Neville thinks is supposed to be reassuring, but the wince that follows is anything but.
“There’s gotta be — potions?” Zacharias says, turning to Neville. “I’m shit at healing spells, so I don’t want to try.”
“I’m decent at them, but it’s up to you, Anthony,” Neville says, worrying at his lip. “We’ve got some potions and salves, too — what actually hurts?”
“Everything, mostly,” Anthony says, grimacing. “I’m sure in fifteen minutes or so the residual cruciatus shocks will subside. I do think I may have a broken rib though? Not sure how you diagnose that one. Other than that it’s just a lot of bruising.”
“Other than that,” Zacharias mutters, rolling his eyes.
“I’ll give you a potion for the pain and then I’ll check to see what the books say about broken bones — I don’t want to risk messing it up,” Neville says, and tries not to blush when Anthony smiles at him gratefully.
“So how did you spring me?” Anthony asks as he lowers himself slowly into an armchair.
“Zacharias and I both sprung distractions at different ends of the castle,” Neville says over his shoulder as he crouches in front of the potions cabinet. “Did they let you go, or did you have to escape?”
“Let me go,” Anthony says as Neville comes up with a large blue bottle and pours out a small shot, handing it to him. “When they heard about the graffiti they looked at me and decided I was pitiful enough already, I think, and just told me to get out of their sight. Gotta tell you though, eight flights of stairs is slow going when you’ve been roughed up.”
“Tell me about it,” Neville says, remembering the times he’s had to drag himself back to headquarters or to Gryffindor Tower after a brutal detention. Zacharias, he notices, is silent.
“How did you get stuck there in the first place?” Zacharias says.
“No one to do the escort with me, so I got ambushed on the way back from the greenhouses,” Anthony admits, pulling a face as he swallows the bitter potion. “My fault, probably, I didn’t do a very good job of fending them off.”
“It’s not your fault,” Zacharias says angrily, and Anthony smiles at him.
“Sure, Zach,” he says and closes his eyes, resting his head against the back of the armchair.
In the end, Neville ends up sneaking down to the hospital wing to get advice on how best to deal with the broken rib. The smile Anthony gives him when the pain in his side instantly dissipates at Neville’s hand is worth it.
Something changes, after that.
Neville thinks it’s going to be for the worse — that Zacharias will escalate to open hostility, rather than the disaffected apathy he has going. Neville is now The Competition, rather than… whatever he was to Zacharias before. To his surprise, however, Zacharias becomes friendlier than before.
Not only that, but Zacharias signs up for chaperone duties. Not many, but it fills in crucial holes in the rota. He’s still nowhere to be found when they put up graffiti and he never defends anyone being picked on, preferring instead to argue with the Death Eater-aligned teachers on abstract points to be obnoxious. He certainly seems to find it funny when he’s spitting out blood afterwards.
“See? Even Zacharias Smith can come good,” Neville says as he and Ginny are going over the week’s rota to double check there are no errors.
Ginny gives him a look filthier than Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, and Neville grins.
And then Harry Fucking Potter turns up, and everyone’s in the Great Hall. Neville is too busy trying to convince angry Sixth Years to evacuate to notice anything the other houses are doing at first, but when he finally convinces Babette Gillingham to join the line for the Hog’s Head, he sees Zacharias Smith pushing past other students, eager to reach the Room of Requirement as quickly as possible.
His stomach drops out from under him.
He honestly thought Zacharias had changed — or perhaps that he’d decided it was beneficial to his quest to win Anthony’s heart. Whichever it was, Neville came to rely on Zacharias doing the right thing when push came to shove.
Ginny’s voice in his head says, “I told you so,” smugly, and he runs his hand through his hair as he looks for Anthony in the rapidly-thinning crowd. It’s not long before Anthony finds him, asks him what they’re doing as if Neville knows anything more than anyone else.
He’s been a leader for this many months. Why should it change now?
Instead of answering, Neville says, “Did you see Smith?”
“Zacharias? Yeah,” Anthony says, and he shrugs, looking unconcerned. Or — not unconcerned, but not any more concerned than he had been before Neville asked. “He said he was going to the Hog’s Head. He doesn’t like to admit it but he’s not heaps good at duelling, see.”
Neville doesn’t have the energy to try to hide his disbelief. “And you’re just fine with it? Zacharias deciding his life is worth more than ours? More than anyone else’s?”
“No, it’s not—” Anthony begins, and then pauses, visibly trying to collect his thoughts and create something that makes sense out of them. “You’re not disappointed in any of the Sixth Years who are evacuating, are you?”
“Of course not,” Neville says, bristling. “I had to bloody well talk all the Gryffindor Sixth Years into leaving, since they were all convinced they were staying, that the rules somehow didn’t apply to them.”
“So how’s that different from Zach?”
“They’re not of age! Zacharias — he—” Neville can’t verbalise why he’s so angry at him. He’s not sure he even knows. It feels like a betrayal, more so than anyone else who’s evacuating.
“This isn’t like what we’ve been doing all year. It was dangerous, but they didn’t want to spill wizarding blood. Here they’ll be killing first, asking questions later. They won’t hesitate, Neville. We can’t expect anyone to put themselves at risk.”
Neville wants to say that they absolutely can, that DA members should, that he doesn’t want to die either — he doesn’t want Anthony to die, he doesn’t want any of them to die but the battle needs to be fought and if it’s got to be someone it may as well be him — but Sprout barks his name.
“Longbottom! Find half a dozen students and meet me in Greenhouse Three. The mandrakes aren’t quite mature yet, but they’ll still be plenty effective if we throw them over the walls.”
And then the battle begins.
Neville loses Anthony about fifteen minutes after the second mandrake run. He uses a column as a barrier to a curse and then just keeps moving, and when he’s finally knocked out the Death Eater he was facing (tying him up, as Sprout had told them to do very seriously “if you do not feel comfortable with killing”), Anthony’s nowhere to be seen.
He can’t afford to worry. He can’t afford to look out for anyone — it’s a distraction from staying alive, and that’s the best way he can help Harry right now.
At some point, Sprout appears, yells about Venomous Tentacula, and Neville sprints back to the greenhouses and levitates as much of it as he can to unleash on the Death Eaters. It’s satisfaction he hasn’t felt this whole year — they’d never been able to make a real impact, things always resetting at the end of the day to the status quo of Death Eaters in charge of the school.
When Voldemort orders the retreat and says Harry has one hour to come to him in the Forbidden Forest, Neville pretends he isn’t scanning the Great Hall for Anthony. He feels burning shame as he sees him at last carrying in a body — how could Neville have been so selfish, when there were still bodies that needed to be gathered, to be witnessed and kept company in death?
He doesn’t speak to Anthony as they pass, though Anthony nods at him and he nods back.
Colin is so… light. That’s the thought he has as he cradles his head, Oliver Wood holding his feet. In death, Colin is even smaller than Neville remembers him, and he is selfishly grateful when Oliver says he can carry him alone, hoisting him over his shoulder. He feels sick to his stomach at the sheer enormity of it all, how they keep finding more and more bodies, and so many of them are people he knows.
But he turns and goes back down the steps to continue the search. It’s all he can do.
It’s not a surprise to hear that Harry Potter is dead.
Neville knows he should be surprised — everyone around him is — but all he can feel is a cold, sinking certainty. Harry was not a very good liar; his advice about the snake when he saw him earlier felt like goodbye, and even though Neville had tried to dissuade him, ultimately he knew it was pointless. All he could do was tell Harry they would all keep on fighting.
That’s what Neville does when faced with Harry’s body and a gloating Voldemort. Logically, he knows he shouldn’t — he shouldn’t throw his life away like this, should wait for a better opportunity, for when he’s not completely surrounded by Death Eaters, perhaps.
The immolation feels… oddly fitting. He enters Hogwarts with the Sorting Hat on his head, and that’s the way he’s going to leave it. The flames lick at the sides of his face but for some reason they’re not yet consuming him.
He’s almost grateful for the immobilising spell which means he can’t give the Death Eaters the satisfaction of screaming in pain. The smell of burnt hair engulfs him. He’s almost decided to accept it, to embrace the end, when he remembers Harry’s words: kill the snake.
Afterwards, Neville can’t remember what happens next. Does the curse lift, or does he break free? How does he get the hat off his head? How does he know to reach inside it for the sword? (Well, that one he can answer — the rumour that the Hat can bring forth the Sword of Gryffindor is in Hogwarts, a History.) How does he so gracefully swing it just so, slicing off Nagini’s head? How does he not die immediately?
He’s not sure. Hannah Abbott dives for his wand as he’s wielding the sword and hands it to him, though a shield charm seems to already have been cast, keeping him safe for those few crucial moments it takes before he’s ready to duel once more.
Duel he does, and this time he’s not sure why it feels easier. The tide turns in their favour, Death Eaters slower, more tired, whereas they’re buoyed by a last gasp of desperation, the viciousness of a prey animal backed into a corner. Predators, after all, get complacent. Prey know that if they stop fighting, they die.
He feels, just for a moment, that he could kill Fenrir Greyback when he falls to the ground. Ron is an excellent duelling partner, working in an easy tandem with him, and Neville wishes for a moment that he’d been around the rest of the year.
It’s for the best, he’s sure, when he’s drawn away from the unconscious Greyback by a shout and leaps into another duel, this time against an unknown masked Death Eater who is completely silent but quick on their feet.
At last, at last, it comes down to what it always was in the end: Harry Potter and Voldemort. Neville can only watch as Harry talks and Voldemort becomes more incensed, and it feels, if anything, anticlimactic as Voldemort falls lifeless to the ground. Anything would, probably.
But then he’s hugging Harry and the war is over and everything is over and he’s alive and—
He’s not sure why he’s still holding the sword as he extracts himself from the knot of people swarming Harry. When had he last seen Anthony?
It’s not that Anthony is the first person he thinks of. Anthony’s just a crush that’s gone nowhere; his grandmother is out there. But he knows where all his loved ones are, more or less: he heard his gran shouting just a few minutes ago; Ginny was right next to him, in the crowd he just left, as were most of the DA who had stayed behind; a few of his friends are lying on the cold, hard floor of the Great Hall.
He knows that there is a non-zero chance that Anthony belongs among the rows of bodies and they just haven’t found him yet. The castle is enormous, and Neville thinks with horror of the possibility that they will be finding bodies for weeks to come. He has no idea if the fact that Scotland is always cold, even in May, will slow the putrefaction much if at all.
It’s as he sways, feeling like he may well be about to vomit up bile (he hasn’t eaten anything for at least twelve hours, not since dinner last night) that he hears his name called over the din.
It’s Anthony, almost tripping over himself in his haste to get down the stairs, covered in dust and scratches but very much alive.
As he approaches, Neville really does vomit, leaning on the sword as he doubles over. What a seduction technique, Longbottom.
“Neville, are you alright? Here, sit down, I’ll clean this up,” Anthony says, his hands on Neville’s back and shoulder as he’s lowered gently to the ground. Anthony vanishes the small, sad puddle of yellowish bile and crouches down, his concerned face level with Neville’s. “Is it over?” he asks, looking over Neville’s shoulder at the people behind them, many of whom are celebrating but not all of them.
Neville hears someone sob, “Lavender! Lavender, darling, my girl,” and winces.
“Yeah. Harry killed him.”
Anthony nods and then they sit in silence for a moment. It is over, and they should be happy, but (perhaps like all victories in war?) it feels Pyrrhic at best.
It’s certainly nothing like the stories: in those, the hero kisses their love interest triumphantly and everyone lives happily ever after. Neville has absolutely no desire to kiss Anthony, though he would probably go for a hug if it were on offer. For one thing, he has just vomited, and for another, there’s no space inside him to deal with any of that yet. Instead, when a house elf appears and asks if they would like food, Neville accepts, feeling suddenly ravenous. Anthony tells him to sit when he starts to get up, pretending to frown and be cross as he gives Neville orders but he’s still smiling.
So Neville eats a beef sandwich and Anthony disappears to help Madam Pomfrey. Hopefully he, too, gets a beef sandwich.
It’s three hours later, once Neville has recovered and is helping clear the grounds so they can more easily search for bodies, that Zacharias Smith returns.
“Longbottom,” he shouts, jogging up to him. He’s holding a broom, probably flown here from Hogsmeade, Neville guesses. There were things Neville wanted to say to him before the battle, but now he doesn’t see the point; doesn’t even greet him, just nods.
“Is Anthony…?” Zacharias says, and Neville realises with a jolt that he has no idea who lived and who died. Presumably he’s heard that Voldemort is gone, because he’s come back, but the casualty list can’t have made it far yet.
“He’s helping Madam Pomfrey,” Neville says, “in the Great Hall.”
Zacharias mutters something that could be, “Thanks,” and turns and begins jogging towards the castle.
"Zacharias," Neville calls and Zacharias turns around, clearly wanting to find Anthony as quickly as possible, but stopping for Neville — and despite himself, Neville recognises that from Zacharias Smith, that means something. "Why did you do it?"
"Run away?"
"No, no, I mean before that — why did you start to help, after we saved Anthony?"
"It was important to him."
"Then why the shit did you leave?" Neville hadn’t thought it was important anymore, but now he finds it is. He wants answers, he wants to know.
"You were already staying, you’d look out for him. I'm not a fighter."
Neville wants to open his mouth and argue, say that none of them were fighters before they were forced to be fighters — they were children, for god's sake. He wants to, but this is Zacharias Smith. He closes his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts, and when he opens them again, Zacharias is gone.
He turns back to his task. The May sun shines down, illuminating a new world.