A/N: Takes place a few weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts. Follows book canon except mentions a line Dumbledore said in the PoA movie. I've been meaning to upload this story for a long time, and I'll hopefully be able to finish it soon. As always, I own nothing of JK Rowling's magical world and her characters. Hope you enjoy it, and comments/ critiques are always welcomed!

The streets of London were teeming with life. They boasted workers and merchants, shoppers and lay a-bouts and even beggars. The diversity was just as strange, just as fantastic as anywhere else. Everyday there walked people capable of great good and those capable of great evil.

Now, on a warm summer day our story begins, away from all this yet in the center of it all. Alleyways: the underbellies of the city, hidden in plain sight. Passerby on this specific day cast only a few unfocused glances down them, and were practically oblivious to the small sounds emanating from them. But had one been alert enough, they might have heard a small pop. And had they been curious enough, they wouldn't have dismissed it as a sigh of the wind, or their imagination. Above all else, had they been learned in the magical arts, their ears (after the recent war) would still be trained to listen for that sound, knowing what it meant, and the dangers it posed. Someone had apparated in the near vicinity, but not a single person was in sight. Now one might have also assumed that the air apparently rippling and quivering before them was just an illusion caused by the sweltering heat that summer day.

That is, until a young man suddenly appeared in that exact spot. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of the shadows.

Neville Longbottom had a round, kind sort of face. And had you seen him but a year before, there would have been an air of nervousness and uncertainty about him (which had begun dissipating over the course of the previous two years). This was now replaced by two things. First, he seemed to give off self confidence (which used to be a foreign concept for him). Second, he now had the look of one who had been through so much in so little time. He wasn't even eighteen years old, but in the past year so much had changed-for the good, and for the bad. Some fading scars, his souvenirs of the war, were displayed across his face. His hair, overlong for so many months, was now cropped shorter. All together, he looked as if he had gained back his health after many months of sketchy living conditions. But no matter how well-groomed or well-fed he was, it couldn't detract from the look of knowing in his eyes; knowing of the true horrors of war.

Pausing for a moment, Neville surveyed his surroundings. Disillusionment charm gone, he still seemed invisible to the passing people. Good to know he had mastered wearing Muggle clothing. Also good to know that after being a war hero he would still continue to be ignored and overlooked. Some things never change.

But these things didn't matter to him. In the past few weeks he had actually had unnatural amounts of attention from people: the press, his grandmother…women. (Honestly, you chop off one snake's head and suddenly you're one of the most desired men in the Wizarding World!) To some he also seemed a god. An angel who had looked the devil in the eye and told him he wouldn't join him until his fiery kingdom of Hell froze over. All the attention made him uncomfortable, especially when a Hufflepuff girl he hardly knew (what was her name? Hannah?) kept insisting the two of them were 'soul mates.' In times like this he often found himself in Luna's company; sitting in her newly-repaired bedroom, listening to her tell him about Crumple-Horned Humdingers or whatever they were called. She was so passionate when she talked about the creatures that he couldn't help but admire her. He could forget the pressures and the attention and the haunting memories when he was with her.

Despite all the sudden fame, he only longed for the attention of two people. The two people who had created him, yet they didn't even remember his name. Going to see them now took too much strength, knowing it would crush the dreams he kept telling himself not to have. How many times had the scenario played through his mind anyway? Where he came home to two normal parents, both of their faces lit with pride and recognition at their son?

Was the sun shining to mock him? Did its rays feebly try to penetrate to his innermost self and warm his core, or did it shine because of the contrast? The contrast of the sun's heat to the cold he felt himself?

He wished he was in the Hogwarts' greenhouses, collecting Bubotuber pus or repotting mandrakes. Plants are so much simpler than humans, he thought. Godric damn it. He was Neville Longbottom, co-leader of a rebellion and slayer of Nagini, and here he was thinking about his feelings and tending to plants. Merlin, would that look good in the history books.

Disregarding that thought, he considered that perhaps the sun was in fact there to soothe him; to dry his tear-stained cheeks. Instinctively he reached a hand to his face to wipe away the tears when a new thought hit him. The sun…the light…what was it Dumbledore had said third year? Ah yes. "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, is one only remembers to turn on the light." But…how would he do that? What was his 'light' and what was its source?

Suddenly a high, dreamy voice spoke out behind him, disturbing his thoughts.

"You know, you really are getting quite good at Disillusionment Charms, Neville."

He jumped slightly. Luna.