Nobody

Nobody

"I'm Nobody," he said to me, looking down sharply, and I thought this was a perfectly acceptable answer. Nobody was someone familiar to me; sometimes I was Nobody, too. And it was fun, like that. No one knew and no one cared. But that crazy Ginny girl had to tell him he was silly, had to introduce him as Neville Something-or-other. And I was angry. Neville meant that he was Nobody, obviously.

And in my dreams, that's what I always called him: Nobody. Because, clear as day, that's who he wanted to be, and sometimes that was who he was. And that's why we stayed up late at night, talking. He knew I understood him.

But when I wasn't dreaming, I'd call him Neville. Sometimes he didn't want to be Nobody. Sometimes it became too much of a burden, even for him.

He knew what they called him behind his back as well as I did. "Stupid Neville," they'd say, shaking their heads and chuckling. "He just never quite gets it."

And I knew as well as he did what they called me. "Loony Luna," they'd also say, also shaking their heads and also chuckling. "She's just not all there, is she?" But of course I was. I was there when they talked about me. I was there.

And I guess they didn't realize, or just didn't care, that Neville and I made fun of them right back. "All of them," we'd say, now our turn to shake our heads and chuckle. "Poor, poor them. They just never quite get it, and they're just not all there." And it satisfied us to say that, like a hidden joke only we understood, like they knew nothing. And they didn't.

We fell in love from the start, you know. Couldn't really even keep our eyes off each other, even when people stared, even when they pointed out, snickering, that our magazines were upside down.

I suppose we came to such a...an understanding of each other. The loss of his parents was met with the loss of my mother; caused the both of us to be lost ourselves unless we were together. And sometimes on bad nights, when our losses overflowed, we just cried, held each other, and cried for ourselves, because that was the only thing we had. And, really, it was the only thing we needed.

But not just the loss of our loved ones hurt us. It was all their words of unreasonable hatred towards Stupid Neville and Loony Luna. Because they hurt us more than whatever we'd ever admit.

Our first kiss was exactly how I thought it would be. Neville leaned over, hesitant, and I leaned forward a little and we met that way, connected by way of lips, shy and small. Then we blushed and we sighed and went our separate ways to our separate classes.

And ever since then we were officially, traditionally together. We'd walk the classic Hogwarts Couple Walk like everyone else; the boy end's arm slung loosely around the girl end's shoulders, somewhat protectively, almost as if to show off their property, and the girl with her head on the boy's shoulder, in, or pretending to be, total bliss. And I hated that; hated being paraded, almost, around like some blue ribbon. And I think that was the only thing I hated about "Neville-and-Luna" (because now that we were together, we were only referred to as that): tradition. We had to be so traditional. But I did it for Neville's sake, because he had to have some sense of normalcy, some sense of fitting in, even with me.

But tonight, tonight we were all alone, lying together on a blue Ravenclaw common room couch. And I sensed that Neville desperately needed to be Somebody this night, so I scooted up close to his ear and whispered, "You'll always be, Neville. We'll always be. Even though we all love to escape sometimes, you will never be Nobody. At least not to me."

And you know how sometimes you get that warm feeling deep inside when you just know you've said just the right thing? Well, that's exactly how I felt just then.