The Lunch

Chapter Five...The Lunch

Little flower, but if I could understand, what you are, root and all in all, I should know what God and man is.

"Neville!"

He turned and smiled at Saida as she caught up with him. She was panting, struggling with a heavy laundry wagon heaped with white linen and robes, bed sheets and curtains.

"Laundry day, is it?" he asked and grabbed hold of the side of the wagon, helping her steer.

"One day early," she said, nodding. "The patient I told you about? The one who runs off all the time? Soils the robes somewhat dreadful, I've changed her so many times already this week..."

"That bad, is she?"

"Can hardly communicate properly any more... mind like a corkscrew, poor thing."

She was wearing two necklaces today, one a fine gold chain with a jade pendant attached and one a crucifix that hung on a band of black and silver pearls. Neville gazed at it, fascinated by this display of a religion that had at best made him feel awkward and slightly embarrassed, at worst obligated, and never peaceful.

"I didn't know you were Christian," he said.

Saida's reaction was interesting. She looked first uncomprehending, then startled and flustered as she remembered the crucifix around her neck. She immediately clasped one hand around it, almost as if to hide it, and the laundry trolley swerved as she let go.

"Ah! Oh, I'm such a klutz." She returned both hands to handling the wagon and let the crucifix go, cheeks flushing a little. "No, I'm not a believer. But, um... it was my great-aunt's, and she liked me to wear it... yeah."

Neville nodded. He thought he knew how she felt, because he faced the same dilemma. Not willing to call himself Christian but not quite willing to denounce it completely, either. Not having enough faith (he thought) but at the same time not having enough lack of faith to call himself atheist. He'd heard the word agnostic and thought it sounded too much like something out of a Muggle medical journal. He'd heard of Taoism and thought it sounded like something that should be practised in some eastern country wearing tie-dyed robes. He'd heard of wishy-washy and thought that fitted him rather well.

Because when dragonriders fell from the sky, Death Eaters tortured innocent men and women into insanity, and Luna talked with statues, her fingers twitching, how could you believe in a benevolent God? Yet when there was such a thing as the beauty of the Gloriosa Suberba, with its wondrous crowns of red and yellow petals and its delicately curled green leaves, how could you not?

"My stop." Saida broke in on his thoughts, bringing the wagon to a halt in front of the statue of a bathing Bacchus that guarded the laundry room. "Thanks for the help." She raised her hand to tap Bacchus's, then turned back. "You know, now that I caught you, I was wondering... you couldn't get me a bit of powdered dragon claw, if you're heading down to the lab later? Just an ounce or two."

Neville frowned in thought. "I'm on patients after lunch as well, but I might be down if I need something for myself. If you give me the receipt, I'll try to find the time to nip down."

"The receipt, yeah." Saida smiled. "That's just the damndest thing – haven't my ID-number on me at the moment, and I can't ever seem to remember it, blasted thing. You couldn't bend the rules a little? Please?"

"You have to sign for it, Saida," smiled Neville, "you know that. Sorry, rules are rules...and they're really strict at the moment."

He didn't say anything about the thefts, or where the suspicion was falling, or the fear that he could lose his job and freedom...they wouldn't send him to Azkaban for suspicion of theft, he was being ridiculous...if he was caught leaving with as much as a ball of dust he hadn't signed for.

Saida looked slightly disgruntled for a second but then shrugged. "Oh well. Guess I'll just have to drag myself down there and sign for it later on. You know, that Imp can be a real uptight snark about these things."

"I'm sure it's necessary on some level." Neville grinned, somewhat forced. He knew damn well that it was absolutely necessary.

It wasn't until later he started wondering what she would use dragon claw for, up in the mental ward. Maybe he wouldn't want to know. The medications they gave the charges were sometimes not pleasant, neither for the patients to take nor for others to see. Neville was still young when they had removed shock treatment, where the Healers would attempt to startle the mental patients back into sanity either by pain or visions of horror, but he was old enough to remember his mother crying, clutching pleadingly at the Healers' robes.

His grandmother had hated the shock treatments and had been instrumental in bringing about their removal.

He was forever grateful to her for that, but he'd never found the words to tell her.

Luna was sitting by the fountain when he took his lunch out, and as she saw him, she smiled. There was a small bead in one of her ears and a grotesque, twisted figure hanging from the other, so large he was sure it would rend her earlobe in two. But either it wasn't as heavy as it looked or there was some magic attached to it, because she showed no sign of discomfort. The figure was vaguely humanoid, made of a silvery metal and tarnished with time.

"It's a gargoyle," said Luna, and he jumped as he realised she'd noticed him staring. "I wore it today because I thought Percival might like to see it. He says he likes it."

Neville looked up at the stone faun. It was silent, and there was no sign of any evoking charm having been cast on it recently.

"Does he, now. Well, each to his own taste," he said, smiling at her. "Brought you lunch." He was glad he'd taken the precaution of bringing food for two today.

"You're not wearing your green robes today," she said. "And I told you yesterday they were so nice. Don't you agree?"

"Here, lunch." He handed her a plate and a plastic fork, not revealing how frightening he found her words. Yesterday? Had she really lost an entire day, then? "The green ones are my sturdier outer robes, the ones I put on for gardening and potion-making. But today I'm not doing either. Just tending to patients. So today, the nice robes are in the wash. God knows they needed it, too." He grinned. "How's the food?"

"Good," nodded Luna, picking at the food on her plate. "I'm not often hungry though, these days. Sorry. It is good."

"Eat as much...or as little...as you like. It's cool."

"Isn't it hot, rather?" asked Luna, looking at him with large eyes. "I think so, in any case. You'd think it was July." She paused and appeared to think. "It isn't July, is it?"

"No," said Neville, and now he sighed. "It isn't."

"There's a girl," said Luna, "looks Indian. I saw you with her earlier."

"So you were inside St Mungo's today then?" asked Neville, and that was a stupid question. He knew...well, thought he knew, but hoped he was wrong...that she was inside St Mungo's every day.

"No," said Luna, shiftily. "I saw you through a window."

There were no windows in any of the corridors or rooms he and Saida had passed through.

"Of course," said Neville. "What about her? The girl? Her name is Saida, by the way."

"Are you good friends?" asked Luna. She was looking over his shoulder into the heart of the garden, and she was bending the prongs of the fork backwards and breaking them, one after the other. He wondered if she knew what she was doing.

"We're good friends, yes."

"You'd do anything for her." It was a statement, not a question, but Neville laughed.

"Don't know about that," he said. "That's what she has her fiancé for. To do all the anything for her. But we're friends, through him. The fiancé, I mean. I met him during my trainee period, and he was very kind to me. Very mean, sometimes, too...Merlin, he could be so sarcastic. Made me come out of my shell a little." He stopped, realised he had been babbling. "Ah, I'm sorry! I just keep talking. Was there anything you wanted to ask? About Saida?"

She looked at him for some time, searchingly, then looked away.

"No," she said. "Nothing important."

Quote in this chapter by Tennyson.

Thanks to AmyLouise for betaing!