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“Come on, almost there… almost there…”
Neville sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him, Ginny right beside him, her hair flailing wildly behind her as they raced around the corner of the dungeon, hundreds of half-decayed, shambling feet stumbling along behind them. Neville had heard stories about Inferi since he was a child, but he had never imagined they could move so bloody fast.
They were in a dungeon, deep underground—far from the surface, far from any Order help coming. Hell, if they could even call it the Order anymore. The war had stretched on for years at this point, a slow, drawn-out battle of attrition, and they had faced devastating losses, but Neville had never given up, not once, not even when Harry died. He couldn’t give up. His parents’ suffering couldn’t be for nothing. His friends’ sacrifices couldn’t be for nothing. Neville would make sure of it.
“Bombarda!” Ginny bellowed, throwing the curse over her shoulder and blasting the nearest group of Inferi to bits, temporarily slowing the horde. Neville grinned, allowing himself a moment to look at her, to observe the fire in her eyes as she faced forward again, her energy focused on their destination.
She had been the only one to stick by him, to throw herself whole-heartedly into the cause without Harry to guide them. The Boy Who Lived was dead, but Ginny hadn’t given up. Neville hadn’t given up.
And it was about to pay off. Lord Voldemort’s final Horcrux—a diadem which had once belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw—lay hidden at the bottom of this series of dungeons.
“Confringo!”
“Good thinking,” Neville panted. “They hate fire.”
“Oh fuck.”
They were about to reach the end of the stone corridor, coming to a fork in the road, a fork which Neville knew they needed to take to the right, but their path was blocked by another horde of Inferi, a great big mass of them reaching toward them with skeletal arms, cutting off their path.
They were trapped.
Neville didn’t stop to think. “In here!” He grabbed Ginny’s arm and yanked open a door to his immediate right, pulling her inside. If there were more Inferi in here, they were fucked either way, but at least this way there might be a chance…
He slammed the door closed, holding it back with his weight, and Ginny leaned against it with him, holding back the weight of dozens of undead hands reaching for them.
Mercifully, the room they had entered was devoid of Inferi. Unmercifully, they seemed to have entered a dead end.
“Look,” Neville panted. “Over there. That sword, do you see it? I’m going to hold this door, and then you have to slide the sword through the handle, yeah? Then we can move some of these barrels in front of it—that should hold them off for a bit.”
“Okay,” Ginny nodded, her own breathing labored. “On three. One. Two. Three!”
She bolted for the sword, and Neville pushed with all his might against the door, his back straining, and he was sure it was going to break, sure it was going to burst, but then Ginny was sliding the sword through the handle just as he had said, and now she was levitating a barrel forward, then another, and…
“Okay. Okay. I think… I think that’s good for now.”
“Thanks.” Neville stepped away from the door, his muscles shaking from the prolonged exertion, and looked more closely at their surroundings.
It was well and truly a dead end.
“Well fuck,” Ginny said, and Neville couldn’t help it—he laughed. They had fought so hard, so hard, to get here, even when everyone else had lost faith, even when they had told Neville he was mad for even considering attempting this trip. It couldn’t end this way.
Ginny crossed to the other side of the small room and sat down, her back sliding against the stone wall as she leaned up against it. “I guess either we figure out a way out of here safely, or they break in and kill us. Either way, I vote we take a breather for a moment. We’ve been running for hours, it feels like.”
“Agreed,” Neville said, though he could feel the adrenaline pumping in his blood, could feel the urgent call to keep going, keep going, keep going. But instead, he walked across the room and sat down next to Ginny, allowing himself to truly catch his breath for the first time since they had descended into this dungeon.
The sounds of the Inferi were muffled from behind the dungeon door, though Neville knew without a doubt that they were still there. He frowned, thinking hard. It couldn’t end like this. They had to figure something out.
He should be thinking of battle plans. Of clever schemes and daring escapades. That’s what Harry would have done in this situation, after all.
But he wasn’t Harry. And he couldn’t help where his mind drifted when death was so near.
“Can I tell you something?”
“If it’s that we need to move more things in front of the door, give me two more minutes.”
Neville shook his head. “No. Not about that. I just…”
“Neville, we’re not going to die in here. Now isn’t the time for goodbyes.”
“I know we’re not,” he lied, wondering if she was lying too. “And I’m not saying goodbye. But while we’re stuck in here, I might as well speak my mind, right? No time like the present?”
“I suppose so,” Ginny said, caution in her voice. “What’s on your mind, besides the hordes of Inferi?”
“I just…” He struggled with his words, hating that this was so difficult, hating that it had always been difficult. “I don’t think you know what it means to me that you never stopped fighting—that you never gave up, even after Harry. I feel like I’ve spent so much of my life being afraid, and then once I decided to stop, everyone else started being afraid in my place. No one was willing to risk everything to take him down—except you. It’s always been you.”
He turned to look at Ginny, whose eyes were wide.
“I could never say it when Harry was alive, because I felt like I was overstepping, or it would be improper or something. And then once he died… well, I guess there’s never really a right time for these kinds of conversations.” He ran a hand through his hair, wishing that words were easier. “But it’s been you. Always, ever since I met you, it’s been you. And I just want you to know that.”
“Neville…”
He looked away, looked back at the barred door.
“You don’t have to say anything now. No goodbyes also means no deathbed confessionals, right?”
“We’re not going to die in here. It’s not a deathbed confessional.”
“What would you call it then?”
“The truth.” His eyes widened, but she kept talking. “Can I tell you something?”
A lump suddenly formed in his throat, his palms growing sweatier than they had been even while running. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know it was you, but Neville… I think it is.”
He looked up, startled. “What?”
“The way you’ve fought, the way you’ve kept us all going even with how absolutely shit things have turned out so far… it’s… it’s nothing short of incredible. I know you always felt like you were in Harry’s shadow, but you’re a leader, Neville. A hero. And…”
She was smiling at him.
“And?” Neville whispered.
“Let’s make a promise.”
“Okay… what—”
He could not ask what promise they were making, because she had leaned forward and pressed her full lips to his, gentle and soft and warm—a breath of spring in this cold, dark, dungeon. Was this really happening? Did she… could she really feel the same way, after all this time?
She pulled back. “Let’s make a promise,” she whispered, “that that will be the first of many. Okay?”
His heart was beating so fast, but for once, it was in excitement, not terror. “Okay. I promise.”
Ginny grinned. “Okay. Then let’s figure out a way to get out of here in one piece.”
Neville blew out a dramatic breath, making her laugh. “Alright. I guess we should search the room.”
They stood up and began to dig through the detritus that had been left behind here—more barrels, and old inkwells, and a chest, a chest which Ginny had to magically open.
“Neville! Look! It’s alchemist’s fire!”
Neville turned from the suit of armor he had been examining, wondering if it would provide sufficient protection against the Inferi, to see Ginny standing over the chest, which was full of vials of bright green liquid.
“What’s alchemist’s fire?”
“It’s kind of like Fiendfyre, but in potion form. It has a quick burn time, but it’s incredibly corrosive. If we throw some vials out into the hallway…”
“It might destroy the Inferi,” Neville breathed.
“Yep. And I think if we close the door right away, we can survive in here long enough for the fire to burn itself out. It’ll last maybe thirty seconds—a very hot thirty seconds, but we should be safe here.”
“And if we’re not, better a quick death by magical fire than slowly being ripped apart by the Inferi,” Neville added, glancing around the room. “Are we sure we want to do this?”
Ginny nodded. “Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve, remember?”
Neville smiled. “Right. Okay. Then… I guess we need to keep our promise, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay—you grab some vials. Once you’re ready, I’m going to levitate these out of the way and open the door. You’re going to have to be fast—just chuck ‘em out there and I’ll slam the door again. And then…”
“And then we either live, or we die.”
“Right. We either live, or we die.”
“Cheers to living another day.” Ginny winked before grabbing a few vials. “Ready when you are.”
Neville took a deep breath. “On three. One. Two. Three!”
The room exploded in chaos. Barrels went flying, the sword flew out of the handle, and then an explosion like he had never heard as Ginny tossed the vials through the open doorway. It took everything in Neville to run toward, not away, from the explosion to close the door again, and Merlin it was hot, how was he not on fire, this was hell, this was hell—
And then it stopped.
“I think… I think it might have worked,” Ginny panted. She had come to hold the door with him, and Neville hadn’t even realized in the chaos of the moment. “Do we check?”
Neville nodded. “Let’s check.”
Trepidation filling him, he turned and opened the door.
“Yes!” Ginny literally jumped for joy at the sight of the charred, blackened bodies that littered the floor all down the hall—not a single sign of life or unlife among them. “It worked! It actually worked!”
“I suppose even You-Know-Who has to have contingency plans,” Neville mused before laughing along with her. “Guess we should grab some more to take with us, just in case.”
Ginny jumped up and kissed him fully, throwing her arms around his neck, and this time he let himself lean into it, wrapping his arms around her back as he had dreamed of doing ever since he had danced with her at the Yule Ball. It was better than he had even imagined—sweet and fiery and full of life, full of the passion that made up Ginny Weasley’s psyche.
“Come on,” she whispered once she pulled away, taking his hand. “We have a Horcrux to destroy.”