The Truth

Chapter Eight...The Truth

Happiness is holding flowers in both hands.

"Apart from the sabotage done to the stock of potions and ingredients," said Luna, stirring sugar into her coffee with a complacent air, "she also stole jewellery and valuable personal effects from her patients. There is little control of the mental ward, and she was free to act more or less as she saw fit...and of course in her particular ward, all the patients are so far gone as to have little say in the matter. Many probably won't ever know that they were robbed. But when she took my first pair of earrings, I made the mistake of protesting. She hit me quite savagely. Mm, you can't imagine how I've longed for this cup." She drank deep, closing her eyes. "We don't get coffee, us crazy people. It isn't good for our nerves."

"I still can't believe it," Neville, who had hardly been listening, said quietly. Luna regarded him sadly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I've said it before and I can't say it enough."

"It was your job." How long had Saida been stealing and pilfering before suspicion started to grow? How long had she been asking him to bring her something from the lab, saying she'd be down to sign for it later?

"An ugly job. Having to spy on a friend...lock up his friend...pretend, lie, play a mean game..."

"So that was why you made contact with me?" asked Neville. He was looking away from her, and although his tone was light, she winced as if he'd shouted.

"Yes," she said quietly. "You were such good friends with her, and in such a position, that when they learned that I knew you from before, my employers couldn't resist the opportunity. Maybe you'd tell me things without thinking, seeing as I was crazy anyway."

She sighed and looked down into her coffee cup, her face flushed with shame.

"I told you I hated it," she said.

"Yes." How was Dick taking it? Had he known? Or had it come as a shock to him, as well?

"Infiltrating the mental ward...pretending to be insane...nothing, in comparison." She laughed suddenly. "I suppose I did go a little mad, at that. Especially after Bulgaria and everything that happened there. It wasn't very nice."

"You were made an Auror, then?" asked Neville, making an effort to speak with nothing but a friendly interest.

"Not really." Luna hesitated, bit her lip. "I never passed the tests, never registered. But I was sent on missions, mostly like this one. All the government-run establishments are full of old Death Eaters as well as those who followed them only for power or money. I've been doing similar work at the Ministry and the Daily Prophet. I went to Bulgaria posing as the daughter of a Death Eater and tried to infiltrate their faction there; that's where the arm happened, of course. I was found out."

"An undercover agent," said Neville.

"Yes."

"That's a living?"

"Yes. Not a very good one. Ugly, hateful. I won't continue. Seeing you worry..." She bit her lip again and turned away. "I know a little of shame, now."

Neville said nothing, merely drank his tea. Then he sighed, set the tea cup down and rubbed his hands across his face.

"I'm sorry I'm acting like an idiot," he said. "But I liked her, and the feeling of having been an dimwitted, blind fool makes me irritable... and I did worry. Quite a lot. Sorry, I'm accusing you."

"No," said Luna, "you're right. But she didn't only fool you."

"Hm." He drank some more tea, thoughtful. "Did they suspect me? For real?"

"Mm."

"What made them change their minds? Not prosecuting now, are they?" And yet Imp had not said sorry or said with a laugh: "You'll never guess what we were thinking, for a while..." He had been silent, as uncommunicative as before the whole crazy business started...the same, but not the same. Because now Neville knew the silence might always be hiding something else.

"What made them? I did," said Luna, not exactly smugly but with a definite sense of satisfaction. "I've not only been talking to you, here...and I didn't want to talk to you like I was supposed to, trying to wheedle out information and interrogating you without you knowing; I hated it, so I tried to find other ways...I've also been following both you and Saida. Harry's cloak, you know."

"Eh?" said Neville, nonplussed, then understood what she was talking about. "Oh, the Invisibility Cloak? You've been using it..." That explained the forages into the garden, how she had been able to see him again and again, even after the security was tightened. "He doesn't need it himself, then?"

Neville recalled that he'd been hearing very little from Harry for the last half year or so. He'd been burying himself in his work, of course, but still...

"Harry thinks the war is over," said Luna with some asperity. "He's settling into a cottage with Ginny. They're talking of getting married."

"What? No!"

"Yes."

"But she's not even twenty yet!"

"You can have time to see quite a lot of life before turning twenty," said Luna, and although neither she nor Neville looked at her scarred right arm, they both thought of it. "But I agree. I think it's silly."

Luna was the only person who could really use the word silly, thought Neville.

"To get back to you," she continued, "I've testified that you are completely innocent in the matter."

"Mm? Oh, yeah." He thought. "That day, when I came... the master Healer had summoned me. Were they going to accuse me then?"

"No. We needed you to witness. And they did not believe you were involved, not then. I'd told them you weren't."

So it had been paranoia after all, that certainty that he was being watched and guarded. Strange, how powerful the mind was.

Wasn't it?

Luna was watching him closely, and she said now,

"So Dean said you'd called on him."

"Yes."

"You were quite livid, he said."

Neville flushed at the memory. He had been standing in Dean's living room, shouting at him in a way he couldn't remember ever having shouted before. With hindsight, Dean's silent acceptance of his abuse, with no attempt to explain or justify himself, should probably have told him something.

"I said I've always admired you," said Luna smiling, "and I really meant that. It wasn't merely the crazy talking. Thank you."

Neville muttered something rather unintelligible.

"He told me to invite you over as soon as possible. But only if you didn't shout."

They laughed then, for the first time, and although it was nervous at first, they kept laughing until he was drying tears out of his eyes and she was clutching her side.

"So what will you do now?" he asked, once he had recovered. The laughter had been a relief, a return to normal. Luna shrugged.

"Resign. Live on the money I've saved until something comes along that's worth my time. I might turn to Thestral research..."

"Oh? There's research being done on them?"

"Oh, yes, but not nearly on the scale it should be. There is a whole range of uses for Thestral hair that hasn't been explored enough, and I'd be interested in...oh. I'm sorry, I'm boring you." She paused and looked at him (while he tried to look as if Thestral research was, on the contrary, a fascinating subject), leaning her head to one side in the manner he suspected she had practised for her role, but which had by now probably become a habit. "And you?"

Indeed. What would he do now. He had taken the job at St Mungo's because he felt that it was a job in which he could do some good in this traumatised, post-war England and at the same time develop his Herbology skills. He had done that, certainly. But now, with the knowledge that from now on every look from Imp would startle and disconcert him, and every summons from the master Healer would be answered with anxiety, he was starting to wonder if it was time to move on. He had even given it some thought earlier, but had thought it would seem too much like running at that time.

Luna smiled at him. "Did you know Professor Sprout once wrote a thesis on Venomous Tentacula gum disease?" she asked. Neville laughed again...suddenly laughing was easy.

"No, can't say I did. Why?"

"Just thought you might like to know."

"Huh."

"Mm, Hogwarts... the kids there..." She laughed briefly and shook her head. "They're a bit messed up, you know. Many of them saw the war, and they don't know how to handle it. The Slytherins have it bad right now, of course, and many of them retaliate very harshly when they're attacked or mocked. And all of them...the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Slytherins...they're all confused. Some who were there, fighting that war, they think they have to be brave to handle it, and so they turn into hard, angry little creatures, and they hurt others without meaning to. Porcupines." She smiled, then continued, very obviously not looking at him, "It might be that what they need is someone who can show that you can be brave and focused, and maybe angry too, but at the same time kind and laughing."

Neville smiled inwardly as he finished his tea. "Luna," he then said, "the ones you call kids... the oldest are only two years younger than you."

Luna shook her head. "Oh, but they are kids...you'll know it when you see them."

"I suppose I will," said Neville, imagining new students trooping down the lawn towards the greenhouses, curious about what the huge purple-red plant in Number One was or tense with anticipation over the first day in Number Three. They'd be confused and maybe a little bit frightened, and they'd need someone who could explain and encourage without mocking...

"Would," he said. "Would, if I were to seek employment at Hogwarts. Not saying I will."

Luna smiled.

"Luna! I never said anything about applying at Hogwarts! You can't trick me into it like this!"

Luna laughed at him, at his fluster, and stood up.

"I have to go," she said, "report...my employers don't like to be kept waiting. Also, since I'll be telling them that I'm quitting, I'd like them to be in a good mood." She leaned over towards him for a second, and kissed his cheek quickly. "I'll see you at Hogwarts, then."

"Hold on, didn't I just tell you..." Neville began, half annoyed and half amused, but then he stopped, confused. "At Hogwarts? Then you..."

"Oh, didn't I say?" Luna picked up her bag and stood looking down at him. "It'll be a bit of a wrench leaving Dean, of course...a relationship conducted by owls can only survive for so long...but on the other hand he can paint anywhere, and there is a position opening up in Gladrags. He'll be applying for it. Well... he doesn't know yet, of course. Anyway, I've already put out enquiries for a cottage in Hogsmeade. You should probably start soon, too...housing is ever so hard to find these days. Hogsmeade is marginally better than London, true, but even so..."

"Luna, Luna." Neville raised his hands, laughing. "You're not making sense again."

"No?" She raised her eyebrows. "I thought it was obvious. Really, if I'm to do Thestral research, I should want to be where the largest herd in England is, right?"

She laughed again and walked away, and he watched her leave, thinking about Hogwarts. Where he'd been a clumsy, awkward boy, and where he'd grown into someone who was daring, who stood his ground and took up the struggle when he had to. If he went back, now, which one would he be? Here at St Mungo's he'd at least been an adult, whatever else had happened. If he went back, apprenticed to Professor Sprout, would the other teachers treat him as an equal, or would he never grow past the status of an accident-prone student?

He thought he knew the answer, and he also thought he knew what would happen if he stayed at St Mungo's. He could feel it already...he was tired of all his fellow Healers, feeling annoyed or disgusted even with the best of them. If he stayed, he would end up hating them all. And there were people here he didn't want to hate.

Luna stopped by Percival's fountain and raised her wand, and as the faun took her small hands in his large stone ones, the sun came out and bathed them all in bright light, and Neville knew that it was time to break up and start anew. He'd leave a note for Derwent, and he'd send a memo to the Master Healer, then he'd take his gardening case with him and leave.

Maybe he was acting a little crazy, but there was no shame in running if you knew where you were going.

"Hey, Luna!" he shouted, rising from his seat and Vanishing their two cups. "Wait for me."

The End

Ah, and so we come to The End of the Story. Thanks once more to AmyLouise for being a great beta for this, and thank you to all who have reviewed!

The quote in this chapter is a Japanese proverb.