Brave { Neville Longbottom}

Chapter One Hundred Twenty Three

"Hellooo gentlemen!" Kefira greeted Dean and Seamus as she found the two boys already seated in a compartment. "How art thou today?"

"Kefi, what are you doing?" Dean asked with a laugh. "Why are you talking like that?"

She grinned. "Sorry, just trying to change things up, you know, keep it fresh."

Seamus snorted loudly. "Yes, as if we would ever become bored in your presence." he said.

"I'm taking that as a compliment, even if it wasn't meant to be one." She said before walking into the compartment with Neville behind her.

He greeted the boys with a regular hello and a friendly wave while Kefira took her seat across from the other two boys. 

"Did you both have a nice summer? Did you spend some time together?"

"Yeah, Dean spent some time with my family and me. We went to the Quidditch Cup too." Seamus said happily. 

Neville turned a slight shade of pink as Kefira glanced over at him with a knowing grin. He shook his head at her, trying to hold back his smile while Dean and Seamus seemed partially confused.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Seamus questioned, knowing all too well that something was up with Kefira, especially when she smiled that way.

"Hmm? Oh nothing." Kefira shrugged. "Just felt like smiling, that's all. I'm glad you two have a very lovely summer."

The two boys looked to Neville, but he only shrugged to avoid the conversation. Trying to move on from the topic, Neville questioned the two about the Quidditch World Cup, since they had first encountered all the craziness that had been printed in the news.

"My mam didn't let us stay long once everything started getting out of hand, she got us out of there fast." Seamus said. "But it was...just absolute chaos from what we witnessed, everyone was just running around, pushing each other out of the way to get as far as possible. Be thankful that you two missed out on that part. That's all anyone can talk about now."

"Well, it only happened a short while ago, Seams." Kefira said. "Besides, Death Eaters, the Dark Mark being seen, don't you think that gives people enough reason to talk about it?"

At the mention of Death Eaters, Neville fell completely silent as he didn't want to discuss anything about the horrid creatures that were supposedly human beings.

Death Eaters had been the ones to take everything from him in just a short time frame. The idea of them ganging up on his parents and going back and forth,torturing them under the Cruciatus curse made his hands shake terribly. They didn't have the mercy to kill them, they were going to drag out the pain for Alice and Frank Longbottom without an ounce of regret. A swirl of anger and sadness brewed inside of his chest and mind as he tried to push out the mental image, however, his imagination decided to be cruel and provide him with multiple scenarios of his parents' torture.

Kefira, Dean and Seamus didn't seem to notice as they were laughing about the quidditch match as Dean told Kefi all about the referee who continued to become distracted by the Veelas on the pitch.

To busy his thoughts with something else, Neville quickly reached into his bag and pulled out a source of comfort for himself. He pulled out the book that Kefira had made long ago and placed it in his lap. Opening up to one of the random stories, he took in the illustrations and began reading the happy, quirky tales of the animals that Kefira had written out for him. 

He came upon the story of how the lion received his mane, one of the stories he had read countless times. It was one of his favorites if not his favorite story among them all. His fingers trailed over the details of the mane that she had drawn. Peering out of the corner of his eye at her, Neville admired the fiery glow of Kefira's mane that shimmered in the light that poured into the train window.

Without realizing, he had reached out and grabbed one of her curls, moving it about. She quickly felt the small tug and turned her head, facing him with a smile.

"Are you alright?" She asked him.

"Yeah," he smiled in return. "I'm...I'm okay."  

Her eyes trailed down to the book in lap and saw the page that he was on.

"I'm going to have to make you a new book soon." Kefira told him. "You're going to end up wearing that one out."

"I don't think that's a bad thing." Neville said. "It just means I like it a lot."

Dean and Seamus exchanged knowing looks with smirks.

"I think he meant it just means I like you a lot." Seamus whispered to his friend.

"Silly, Neville." Dean chuckled shaking his head.

"So I have a question," Seamus said loudly, grabbing Neville and Kefira's attention once more. "We told you about our summer, but we're not the ones who went to South Africa on holiday....so what happened with you two over the summer?"

Kefira opened her mouth to answer, but for the first time, her face became red in front of the other boys as she blushed. Neville didn't make the situation any better as he turned even redder than her.

"Well, well, well," Seamus folded his arms over his chest. "Blushing, that's a sign that something happened."

"Shut up, Seamus." Kefira grumbled at him.

"Oh not, not until you tell us what exactly happened in South Africa?" His grin grew wider as Kefira and Neville seemed to struggle with their words. That was until, Kefira met the boy's gaze and narrowed her eyes.

"Well, we saw plenty of your relatives, Seamus." She said finally.

"What?" He looked at her in confusion.

"Yeah, there were plenty of fire ants around."

"Why you little-"

Kefira jumped up and ran out of the compartment with Seamus hot on her trail, leaving Dean and Neville alone for quite a bit.

Dean smiled with a small laugh as he looked to Neville.

"You can definitely see the fighting Irish in both of them when they're around each other, can't you?" he said.

"You can hear it too."