There were still jagged shards of broken tables in the corner, pushed and piled there during the repair and reconstruction, glittering with slivers of green glass. The pile covered a small grave, Trevor's body given back to the earth. Neville's home was here with the plants he loved, and it seemed the most fitting place. The rest of the school was in a similar state - half destroyed and half-rebuilt, death and new life entwined together.

There were no more houses as there had been seven years ago when the Sorting Hat read his heart better than Neville himself could do and sent him to Gryffindor. Now they all sleep on cots in the great hall, ringed by new and sleepy ghosts settling in the walls. Slytherin beside Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw jumbled together. Old friends and demons looked the same in the night and the castle was still alive with magic, sparks of attack and counterattack embedded in the walls.

He walked the halls slowly, feeling departed spirits. The malevolence that had filled the school in his las year had dissipated, washed away by death. Occasionally he saw Harry or Ron or Hermione, though their efforts keep them mostly in the heart of things in London. Others visited, helped and mourned. Neville often climbed into the ragged remains of the Gryffindor Tower, staring out at the scattered stars and feeling the warmth of sacrifice around him.

He sensed it now - the steadiness of Remus Lupin, the inner strength of Severus Snape, the humor of Fred Weasley, the calm knowing of Dumbledore. He feels his own past, a child he barely remembers hiding from real and imagined fears, pockets full of foil gum wrappers and holding onto the hope that someday he would actually feel he belonged.

He watched the stars shimmer and the day begin, filling the edges of the sky like a phoenix reborn. He turned away, heading back to his work, winding down the ever-shifting stairs, sucking idly on a lemon drop.