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luna_in_the_sky (luna_in_the_sky) wrote in snark_n_bark, @ 2008-07-08 15:46:00

Time is the greatest healer, but it’s a murderer to do
Characters: Luna, Neville
Summary: Unexpected events interrupt a cozy day for Neville and Luna.



Luna rubbed her eyes and stretched from the tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers. She felt gloriously refreshed, snugly warm, and the sunlight was streaming through the windows as it ought when one woke up at a decent hour.

Something was wrong.

A few seconds later, she remembered that the children were with their grandfather. He'd suddenly decided that he wanted to take them on a backyard camping trip, and Luna and Neville knew he needed the distraction as much as they would appreciate a weekend to themselves. That explained waking up at a decent hour, but not so much the snug warmth.

She rubbed her eyes again and looked at the other side of the bed. Yes, Neville was still there, covers pulled up over his eyes, and as she looked, he let out a snore as if to warn her that he was still asleep. Luna smoothed her hand over the hair sticking up on his pillow. The poor dear. He tended to worry about others' concerns and griefs over his own -- her cautious inquiries about how he felt after they heard the news about Sirius lead to a discussion how it was affecting Faelan, and he was still treating the subject of her mother as if she might have the same sort of fit that left her in St. Mungo's so long the first time -- and he was almost certainly working too hard again.

Well, then, it was about time someone took care of him instead, and if he wouldn't allow his wife that pleasure, he certainly wouldn't accept it from anyone else. She slipped from the bed and tiptoed downstairs, where she made a full English. After setting the leftovers under a Preservation Charm for Neville's inevitable seconds and thirds and arranging a tray for each of them, with apple juice for Neville and milk for her, she headed back upstairs to wake him up, the trays bobbing obligingly ahead of her.

It was the smell of food that woke Neville, though unusually it wasn't because the smell made his stomach rumble. Instead it flipped over, and he cringed under the covers until the feeling passed.

Once he no longer felt like he was about to be sick, he pulled the covers down and offered a wan smile to Luna. "That looks amazing," he lied, it coming easily because on any other morning it really would have. He was probably still too asleep for him to handle it this morning, though, as he could see that he had slept in way beyond his usual time and sleeping too long tended to have that affect on him.

Pushing himself up, he quickly arranged his pillows so he could lean back against the head board, and accepted his tray. "Maybe I should lie in more often if this is the service I get," he said, offering a more genuine grin now that he was upright and the smell of fried food was slightly more appetizing.

"You probably should, service or no," Luna said, kissing his temple before settling next to him and picking her tray out of the air. "You're going to work or worry yourself sick one of these days, and I'll be sure to tell Zach to perform the most embarrassing tests he can think of when I have to make you go see him."

"I'll make more of an effort to be lazy, then," Neville replied, scooping up a forkful of beans. "As much as I like Zach, I would rather not have to visit him at work again." He cut up his tomato and, after a cautious taste, happily ate it down with the rest of his beans. He was obviously in the mood for sweeter stuff today... which would be a really nice way to continue an indulgent weekend.

Putting his knife and fork together on his plate, he picked up his apple juice and drained the glass before turning to Luna. "You fancy getting one of Fortescue's giant fruit sundae's for an after breakfast treat? It would be good for the worry."

Luna paused in chewing her bacon as she glanced between their two mostly-full plates. She always ate more slowly than Neville, but it wasn't like him to leave anything on his plate, at least not if it wasn't charred beyond recognition. On the other hand, it wasn't as if she'd asked what he wanted to eat, and if he wanted ice cream for breakfast, ice cream he would have. Time spent watching Neville eat ice cream was never time wasted.

"All right," she said when she finished the bacon. "I'll take the leftovers back to the kitchen while you get dressed." Belatedly, she remembered that Neville hadn't bothered with his shorts to sleep in, since the twins weren't home. "Or maybe after. Yes, after you get dressed. You can help."

Laughing, Neville moved the tray so that he could slip out of bed. Watching Luna's face as her eyes followed him across the room, he paused in front of the chest of drawers and made a show of stretching. Unable to keep up the act without laughing again, he winked at Luna and grabbed a pair of boxer shorts before heading into the bathroom for a quick shower.

Luna considered following Neville into the bathroom, but she didn't think that would be very conducive to their going out to get ice cream. Instead she took the leftovers down and put them away, shaking her head at the amount. At least she wouldn't have to worry about cooking breakfast for herself for a few days. By the time Neville got out of the shower, she was just finishing clipping her hair back with her ladybird barrettes.

Wandering back into the bedroom in his boxers and towelling his hair, Neville paused at the sight of Luna. "You are entirely too cute in these," he commented, approaching her and playfully flicking one of the springy antennae that stuck out from her hair ties. "Better not get any for Nimue or she'll have all the boys after her." Wrapping his arms around Luna's waist he leant in a nuzzled at her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin. "It's a good job I really really want ice cream, otherwise I would be tempted to drag you back to bed," he teased, before letting go and putting on the rest of his clothing.

"It's a good job I know better than to get between you and ice cream, or we'd still be in the shower," Luna teased back. She watched Neville get dressed in the mirror, flicking the antennae on one of the beetles herself as the majority of Neville's skin disappeared from view. "I'm not sure if Nimue would even notice if boys were after her, but Gawain might decide to steal them from her," she said, contemplating the matter until Neville slipped on his trainers. "Ready to go?"

"Yep," Neville said, straightening up. "This is the bit I like," he said, moving back to Luna's side and wrapping his arms around her again. "Take me!"

Luna's pinch on his backside distracted him from the lurch of the Apparation, but his stomach still protested once it had caught up with him in Diagon Alley. However, Luna was still hugging him and the fruity smell of her shampoo soon settled him again. Enough so that he was able to steal a snog before dragging her in the direction of Fortescue's. The good morning was just getting better....

At least, that was what Neville thought until he spotted the man just leaving Fortescue's and the world appeared to freeze frame.

It was him. It was him and he was free and he was fucking eating ice cream!

Somehow it was the normalcy of what Crouch was doing that riled Neville more than anything else. He had already read in the papers that the bastard had got off on legal technicalities, some crap about him being a genuinely changed man, but to see him in Diagon Alley, eating ice cream as if he didn't have a care in the world, as if he hadn't destroyed families and murdered innocents, was too much.

Neville let go of Luna's hand and began striding forward. As he did so, as Crouch's face became clearer, unmistakable, the fucking bastard enjoying his treat, a memory roused itself, and with mounting horror and rage Neville recognised the man who had disturbed him before the festival at Hogsmeade had become a complete mess. Crouch had been there! Crouch had smiled at his little girl!

Not bothering to draw his wand, Neville went with every primitive instinct in his body and punched Crouch as hard as he could in the face.

Luna wasn't sure what had just happened. One minute they were having a happy, carefree morning and Neville was smiling, the next he was hauling off and punching a stranger. "Neville!" she exclaimed, too shocked to be angry and not sure whether she should be more worried about the man lying on the ground clutching his face or Neville himself. She settled for dashing over and grabbing Neville's wrists, hoping that having her as a physical barrier would be enough to restrain him without resorting to magical means. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's got into him, maybe the stress, he's just had a friend die recently, and my mother.... " she babbled to the stranger, half in apology and half trying to reason out an explanation for herself.

If Luna hadn't grabbed a hold of his arms Neville would have picked Crouch off the floor just so he could knock him down again. Though he could easily have shaken Luna off, her touch was enough to restrain him and he resorted to shouting instead, needing to get the terrible, sickening rage off his chest.

"You tortured my parents, you sick fuck! Why did they let you out? You tortured my parents and then pretended to comfort me! Why would you do that!?"

He did shake one of Luna's hands off at that point so he could cover his mouth, the roiling of his stomach sending the sting of bile up the back of his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to look at Crouch anymore, not wanting to see how slight a man he was, not all that changed from the young man he had been when he and Bellatrix Lestrange had ripped Neville's life apart. Hearing a gasp and a quietly whispered, "The Auror's boy?" he stumbled to the side of the street to vomit.

Luna glanced between the man on the ground and the direction Neville had run off to a few times until she heard Neville retching. She knelt down beside the man and pried his hand away from his face, revealing features she recognized. She still wasn't sure what was going on exactly, but she had the sinking feeling she might have been able to keep it from happening in the first place. "Mr. Elias ap Hedera," she whispered. "I should have investigated you after all, despite everything that came up after I first saw you. You're not who he thinks you are, the goblins are far too organized to make that sort of mistake, but I recommend avoiding Neville in the future. Episky." She touched her wand to his bleeding nose, then stood and went after Neville.

She pulled Neville's hair back from his face and rubbed his back as he continued to heave, though her more clinical side noted that he wasn't bringing anything up anymore.

Luna's fingers grasping his hair, and her hand on his back brought Neville out of the cycle of retching. Shakily he drew his wand and cleared up the mess he had made and freshened his mouth. The spell didn't do as good a job as brushing his teeth would have, but it would do until they were home again.

Turning against Luna's body, he leant his head on her shoulder and hoarsely begged, "Take me home before I kill him."

He kept his eyes closed, knowing that if he so much as caught another glance of Crouch right now, not even Luna would be able to hold him back. The unaccustomed violence of his feelings made his stomach lurch again, but there was nothing to bring up and he clung to Luna as she Apparated them home.

Neville's words, or rather the undertone that told her he meant them, concerned Luna further. She Apparated with all due haste and landed them in the kitchen, where she immediately summoned a glass and filled it with water. "Here, drink this. When you feel better you can tell me what's going on, and then why in the pink and frilly hell you thought attacking someone in the middle of Diagon Alley was suddenly a good idea," she said calmly.

Despite her words, Luna's tone had a soothing rather than provoking effect on Neville. He quietly sipped his water, trying not to think about anything, especially not the fact that he had just attacked somebody in public (no matter how much the bastard had deserved it).

Glass empty and nausea under control, Neville shifted so he was sat cross-legged. He knew that he needed to explain to Luna but he couldn't find the words. Luna didn't tend to read the main stream papers anymore, and he had failed to mention anything of Crouch's capture to her, choosing instead to deal with it on his own. It seemed that had once again been the wrong choice. He doubted he would have flipped out quite so badly if he hadn't been bottling it all up.

Realising that he hadn't kept things completely to himself, he pushed himself up from the floor and darted through to the living room. On the coffee table was his latest journal and as Luna followed him into the room he tossed it onto the sofa, choosing to slump in an armchair himself.

Luna picked up Neville's journal, assuming that his tossing it about was an indication that she would find answers within, and flipped to the later entries. Neville's writing on those pages was scribbled over and indecipherable, but the newspaper clippings stuck to the pages remained intact. She quickly skimmed through them all, unable to hold in a snort when she reached the last. "'Legal technicalities,' that's some spectacularly detailed reporting there. See, this is why I only read The Quibbler these days, it's a waste of time reading the Prophet for actual news as opposed to checking up on them."

She set the journal back on the coffee table, not needing to read the entries themselves to have some idea of what they had contained simply because of the scribbles over them. The last ones left clear impressions five pages deep. She sat on Neville's lap and pulled his head to her shoulder, stroking his hair as she spoke. "I know you're angry at the people who hurt your parents, and it's all right to be, but punching someone who isn't currently a danger isn't going to help. It's more likely to make him want to come after us than anything, if he is still dangerous."

She hesitated, not sure whether her information would make Neville feel worse or better, but she continued in the interest of honesty if nothing else. "I have a hunch that those legal technicalities were something along the lines of 'this person is no longer the person we're accusing.' I saw him, back when I was pregnant, at Gringott's, and the goblins called him 'Mr. Elias ap Hedera.' Anything's possible, but goblins don't tend to mistake identity. It would put them out of business. And Barty Crouch, Jr. was Kissed. Something happened to bring him out of it, and that might have... changed things. I was going to investigate further, back then, but that was back then." She nuzzled Neville's temple, figuring he felt awful enough right now without more explicit reminders of that time period than necessary.

Neville leaned into Luna's body, closing his eyes and letting her fingers in his hair soothe him through her words. When she had finished speaking he let out a long breath. He could accept part of what she was saying, and some of the speculation in the papers supported what she was suggesting about Crouch not being who he used to be. "But he confessed," Neville thought out loud. "He confessed to everything. He knows who he is. He knows who I am. He's still the bastard who tortured my parents. Fuck," he swore, his emotions tumbling over him again. "He pretended to care. He sat there and watched me cry about them!"

Hiding his face against Luna's neck, he squeezed his eyelids tighter together, as though the pressure would remove the memories of sitting in Moody's office, being comforted by a man he had trusted but who had all along been Crouch, mocking him. "He watched me cry," Neville choked, the tears beginning to flow once more.

Luna decided not to press the identity issue. It certainly wasn't making Neville feel any better and didn't seem to be helping on the "don't attack that person on the street" front either. She'd just have to hope he didn't manage to get himself locked up one of these days. "Well, I'm exactly who I am, so you needn't worry about crying to me," she said, then began to murmur soothing phrases. She started with how much she loved him, and the twins loved him, and her dad loved him, and when it became obvious he wasn't really listening to the words anyhow, she moved on to the life cycle of the Adelardus Bat. Just when she thought Neville had finally calmed, he let out a snore.

She shifted slowly so that she could see his face without waking him. He was worryingly pale, the blotches from his crying standing out like blazes. "Oh, Neville. When I said you should lie in more, this wasn't quite what I meant," she whispered before snuggling up against him again, so he wouldn't wake up alone.