Lorelai || Neville Longbottom

Chapter 14

"Do you want to go to the Black Lake?"

I give him a look, saying, "obviously."

He smiles back at me, and then looks around the common room.

It's pretty quiet, not too many students, but enough to see our plan. Even though we have a couple hours to ourselves, we're not allowed off grounds after a certain time, that time being right now. He seemed a little nervous, but he motioned for me to follow him silently, as he walks out of the door. We notice the lady in the portrait already sleeping, so we don't need to worry about explaining why we were leaving.

"Well, come on then!" He calls out to me, causing me to run to catch up with him.

Those words rang in my ears, as me and Neville made our way off of the Hogwarts ground. At one point, he grabbed my hand, as we ran down to the sitting spot in front of the lake.

How we didn't get caught, I have no idea. How we didn't wake up every student, I have no idea. The whole way there, we were laughing as we were running, slightly out of breath, as we were trying to avoid every professor and prefect that we thought would be up.

Running down the hill, I almost fell multiple times. But thankfully, Neville was there to catch my fall.

Once we had made it, I let go of his hand and put them on my knees, bending down.

Then, I started to grow curious.

"Nev, what made you think to go here?" I ask.

"I-I don't know. I guess ... I just wanted to spend time with you." I notice he starts to grow nervous.

He wanted to spend time with me?

I look up at him, a small blush creeping on my cheeks, as I try to make it go away.

"I want to spend time with you too," I give him a small smile, turning around to look at the gorgeous view we had. I look back to see Neville sitting against the tree, so I decide to sit right by him.

"I never thought you would be the type to sneak out," I add to the silence in the air.

He laughs. "Well, I've noticed you sneak out sometimes, so I must get used to it if we're friends, right?"

Friends.

"Right," I murmur. Why am I so upset with hearing the word friends? That's what me and Neville are. Nothing else.

We sit in a comfortable silence, one that we have grown accustomed to. I shift my head, so now we're both laying flat on the ground, looking at the stars above.

"The stars are pretty," I suddenly say, breaking the quietness.

"Yeah, they are. I think I see the Orion."

"What's that?" I turn my head to look at him.

"A constellation," he says plainly.

I sit up, with a shocked expression on my face. "You know constellations?"

"Yeah, my gran bought me a book on them over the summer, so I've been reading on that the past couple of months."

"Nev, that's so cool!" I say, astonished. "Will you show me some more, if you see any?"

He nods encouragingly, as I lay back down. He then points above all of the constellations he recognizes from the book, and some he's seen before. Cassiopeia's Chair, The Archer, the Swan, and Lyre. It feels like he's known about the stars for his whole lifetime, the way he talks about them. It's mesmerizing hearing him speak of the stars.