Stars and Satellites

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I own anything in it, nor do I own Nickelback. If I did, would I be posting this on a fanfiction site?

From underneath the trees, we watch the sky

Confusing stars for satellites

I never dreamed that you'd be mine

But here we are, we're here tonight

If everyone cared and nobody cried,

If everyone loved and nobody lied,

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride,

We'd see the day, when nobody died

And in the air the fireflies

Our only light in paradise

We'll show the world they were wrong

And teach them all to sing along

-If Everyone Cared by Nickelback

Luna ran, her unshod feet slapping against the hard stone floor of Hogwarts and reverberating loudly throughout the Dark Arts corridor. Behind her, she could hear the loud shouting of jinxes flying everywhere. To her right, she could see Neville, panting heavily and beginning to lag behind the rest of the fleeing rebels. In a sudden whirl of blue light and black robes, Neville was on the ground, screaming and writhing in agony. Luna broke from the pack and ran to Neville's side. She gripped his waist and struggled to pull him to his feet. She was about to ask Neville if he was all right, when--

"STUPEFY!"

Luna felt the hard stone floor pressing against her hip when she awoke, and slowly opened her eyes to see where she was. It was clearly a room in Hogwarts, but certainly not one she had every entered. The cracks between the stone were filled with slimy black moss and the floor beneath her was cracked and coated in a good inch of filth. At least the Blibbering Humdingers that had recently inhabited her matted hair would now have somewhere nicer to live. She slowly got to her feet to explore the parts of the room that had not been visible from her position on the floor. She turned around, and saw that Neville was lying slumped on the ground, feet away from where she had lain moments ago. She saw, to her shock, that Neville looked as if he had had a rather bad run-in with an Umgubular Slashkilter. She knelt down to see if he was all right. He was clearly unconscious--he had probably been hit with more than one stunning spell-- and he had quite a few small cuts all over. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, but she had seen times where both of them had been through much worse. Luna sat and watched Neville as his breathing began to come easier and easier, until he could have just been taking an afternoon nap. She thought about all they had been through in the past few hours--the bust by the Death Eaters into the Room of Requirement, the duel, the Death Eaters' call for backup, and the D.A.'s desperate flee. They would certainly have to more careful with wording their requirements in the future, to be sure no Death Eaters would catch them again. Letting her mind wander, Luna noticed the way that Neville's lips moved up and down with his every breath, and how his mousy brown hair fluttered a few millimeters every time her breath stirred the air.

Neville's eyelids flickered slightly, then opened. His deep blue eyes scanned the room, resting for a moment on Luna's and then stopped, staring at a spot a few yards to Luna's right. They widened and froze in an expression of shock. Luna whipped her head around, and saw the dopey grin of Vincent Crabbe. He raised his wand, and, with his mouth stretching into an even wider smile, shouted, "CRUCIO"!

Pain beyond pain. The luminous blue ray of light burned into her eyes, blinding her. She could hear an explosion, a woman's scream, and the sobs of a young girl. She wanted in to stop, but it kept coming. Death would have been better. Every molecule of air bombarded her flesh, every nerve in her body screamed of the overload. Screaming with the intensity of a dozen sirens in her ears, she could her the endless, agonizing shouts of, "CRUCIO! CRUCIO! CRUCIO!" The cold ground froze her skin to a temperature that must have been below absolute zero, the heat of the curse burning into her chest, hotter than the deepest pits of Hell.

Eventually, the pain eased. Luna could open her eyes without the dim light scorching her, and could stand without her muscles screaming from every minute movement. She saw that Neville was standing by the wall and plucking the ghoulish moss from the crevices between the stones. Wondering what he was doing, she slowly moved her lips, and managed to form a single word, "Wazzat?" Neville jumped, dropping the slime that had been clustered in his hand.

"Oh, you're feeling better," he said, smiling while his hands continued to shake like branches in a hurricane. "They hit you pretty hard. You haven't moved in a few hours. After they left, I noticed the moss that's growing here is a kind that can help soothe and heal cuts, so it could be pretty useful." Neville's mumbling became difficult to understand as he groped around on the floor searching for the bits of moss he gathered.

"Good," was the longest response Luna could muster. She closed her eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.

Luna awoke to the feeling of a hard punch in the middle of her face. A dozen teenage Death Eaters were in the room. Draco was standing over her, his right arm still clenched into a tight fist. The other Death Eaters were surrounding him, guffawing. Goyle was punching Neville over and over while Crabbe restrained him.

"Hey Loony, I don't see any Crumple-headed Snakacks coming to your rescue now. Why not? Maybe because they're just a figment of your retarded mind?" Malfoy sneered, while his cronies burst into peals of hysterical laughter. As they continued to taunt her, she leapt up and kicked Malfoy, and saw his eyes widening in surprise. She grabbed Neville's arm and wrenched him away from Crabbe. She ran, and thought of nothing, not of the incredible stupidity of what she had just done, not of what she would do next, not even noticing the hexes chasing her through the hallways. She ran until she collapsed, deep in the Forbidden Forest, Neville alongside her.

A/N: Thanks to Al (Author of Seven / teenage-dirtbag007) for helping me come up with the idea for this story. Next chapter will probably be up in a few days. Please leave comments so that I can know how to improve!