SMILE » n. longbottom

xxxvii

"AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER IN AN UNEXPECTED PLACE, PART TWO"

Those words seemed to echo in Alana Wallace's mind, and that voice had hinted that Neville Longbottom was the one who had said "Alana, is that you?"

When Alana Wallace had turned around her suspicions had been confirmed, as Neville had been in the hallway, as he had just appeared, standing in the middle of the hall. "Indeed it is. Tubes and air tanks aren't really in my favor. Are you here to visit your mother?"

"Yes," Neville gulped, his action slightly noticeable amongst the silence that haunted the lonely halls that occupied no weeping mothers, no recollecting children, no hopeful fathers. The hallway that the two Hogwarts students stood in seemed to be in a certain calm, as if to study the nature of the two.

The Gryffindor discontinued his silence; averting his eyes from where his eyes had hung, searching for the tubes that had once hung below the Hufflepuff's nose that would coil to a air tank that was no longer there: "Are your lungs ... well?"

"Yes, I have been here for a while now, so they're healed and well," Alana paused for a while. "How is your mother?"

"She is as good as she's ever been cooped up in this place," Neville answered, smiling nervously. "How long have you been here at St. Mungos?"

Alana sighed, rubbing her hands as if to warm them up even the effort wouldn't do anything, "I've been here ever since the two days after I left Hogwarts. It has been quite ... boring. How was the end of school?"

"Well, there were some very very slight rumors about Cedric's death and how Harry had supposedly lied about who had killed him," Neville looked at the floor, as if to grieve the Hufflepuff champion whom had been brutally murdered by a ghostly person with a name whispered among the brave, and hinted at by the many. "Have you heard about it? — Cedric ... "

"Of course, who could ignore the articles of the end of the tournament ... " Alana's calm voice wandered off. She looked around the hallway, and finally she returned back to the focus of Neville, "Would you like do like to go somewhere else? Does the lobby sound nice? ... The gardens, even?"

"Sure," Neville responded to Alana's questioning. "— The gardens seem pleasant."

And so the two set off towards the gardens. The Hufflepuff confident, yet nervous in the future conversation that would yet to be spoken of. And the Gryffindor felt a rise and fall in his stomach that he had not felt before.

Silence enclosed the anticipation that hovered above the gardens of St. Mungos. But that had been broken as Neville spoke aloud to Alana, "It was quite lonely without you there at Hogwarts for the end of the days. Harry would not speak to me, he closed himself off, I suppose; it felt like déjà vu."

"Oh?" Alana Wallace face felt like it had been burning up, and goosebumps had appeared on her arms. It had became clear that Neville felt some sort of need around Alana, as if she were a star; and as if he: debris floating throughout the vast universe. Alana finally came up with a reply to Neville's declaration of how he must have felt during the last days of Hogwarts' school year, "St. Mungos has been lonely and quiet as well. But: Nothing ever would happen here, so what would really be of importance at St. Mungos?"

"Well, lots of things. I suppose break-throughs in health and medicine, potions, and spells occur daily," Neville answered, unaware that what Alana had asked had indeed been a rhetorical question.

Neville smirked at himself in embarrassment and half astonishment that he had made that foolish of a mistake. His gaze had avoided Alana's tense stares that seemed to shoot lasers through her eyelids as if commanding Neville to stare at her.

And until the Gryffindor did, he absorbed in the energy and purity that radiated off of those eyes.

Neville had studied these eyes before: the color was rich like chocolate and soft as fur when Alana had been happy, but when crossed, those eyes quickly became the rocks that ships would shatter against in a storm.

Oh, how some days he had been lost in that stare, but indeed he felt that a spell had been casted onto him like an enchantress's curse.

But Neville Longbottom ignored those feelings until he was certain that Alana would feel somewhat the same towards him. He smiled simply, "I was thinking about something, sorry." He lied.

"That's fine," Alana nodded. She was about to say something when Doctor Paddlewinn spoke about —

"Oh, Alana, I —"

The Hufflepuff turned her head slightly as if to signify for the woman to speak: "What is it?"

Doctor Paddlewinn, spoke, "Sorry to interrupt your conversation, you two; but I wish of my patient to discuss the upcoming events in my office in the possible approximate five minutes or less."

"I will be there," Alana nodded to her doctor. And once the woman had left, the Hufflepuff returned her focus towards the Gryffindor who patiently sat quietly. "If I don't see you again, I'll send you a letter whenever. Does that sound alright?"

In response to that clarification, Neville hummed slightly, signifying that he was fine with Alana leaving to her doctor. And truthfully: he indeed was fine with that.