Disclaimer: Don't know if I did one of these, so here goes. I only own the plot. J.K. Rowling owns everything else.
Neville smoothed nonexistent wrinkles out of his robes for the third time since arriving at the Ministry of Magic five minutes before. He was nervous, more nervous than he'd been since he left Hogwarts. When he'd received the owl requesting he come back to England post-haste, he'd hoped he could come and go without seeing anyone from school especially Ginny. Of all the people he'd known then, she meant the most to him. The thought of explaining the reasons behind his sudden disappearance seemed too daunting; he wasn't even sure he could make her or any of the others understand. Besides, he enjoyed the life he'd made for himself. Confronting his past would just complicate things.
Yet here he was. And here she came. Neville watched, an odd mixture of anxiety and eagerness fluttering in the pit of his stomach, as Ginny wended her way through the rush hour crowd toward him. She'd gotten prettier in the last six years. The vibrant, trademark red mane caressed her face and shoulders. Her bright, brown eyes sparkled brilliantly as they landed on him. Neville felt like he was sixteen again with an unrequited crush on his best friend. Pasting a smile on his lips even as he sighed, Neville waited for her to reach him and accepted her hug.
"I was afraid you'd change your mind," she told him as she pulled out of his embrace.
He'd considered it but he knew that Ginny would have found him eventually and then things would have been much worse. "You ready?"
"Let's go," she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him toward the wall of fireplaces. She gave him her address as they waited for the line to move and made him repeat it. Then it was their turn. She went first. A minute later, he emerged in her living room. It was exactly the way he'd thought it would be: warm and inviting, filled with a cushy sofa and chairs, small mementos and dozens of pictures.
"May I take your robe," she asked, drawing his attention back to her. She was smiling at him, making the jitters in his stomach act up again. Undoing the clasp, he shrugged out of his midnight blue robe and handed it to her. He turned away and pretended to peruse the pictures.
Get a hold of yourself, Neville, he admonished himself. She didn't want you then and she doesn't now. You're happy with your life the way it is. No need to mess with it.
"I took it out of my memory book and framed it after you disappeared," Ginny said beside him, startling him out of his private conversation.
"I'm sorry, what?"
She pointed to the picture he'd been blindly staring at for the last few minutes. It was of the two of them at the Yule Ball. Picture Ginny was laughing at something while Picture Neville smiled shyly and looked at her with admiring eyes. "I had a good time that night," she murmured, her hand coming to rest on the back of his arm.
Neville closed his eyes against the brief shock of awareness that whipped through him at her touch before meeting her gaze. Uncertainty flickered across her face as she tilted her head, clearly trying to understand the suddenly charged atmosphere between them. He didn't understand it either. With a slight smile, he whispered, "I had a good time, too."
Surprisingly, a delicate blush stained Ginny's cheeks and she looked away. Her hand slipped off of his arm and he stuffed his in his pockets. "So," she began after clearing her throat, "What do you want to eat?"
"Whatever you have in mind is fine with me."
"I'd had a pizza from Renati's in mind . . ."
"Sounds good," he assured her.
The next hour passed easily enough. Ginny had filled him in on everything for the past six years while they waited for the pizza to arrive all the way through their second helpings. Neville stretched out, his ankles crossed, his head resting on the back of the couch, and a bottle of butterbeer sitting on his stomach. "Harry's dating . . . Luna?" he asked, surprised.
Ginny laughed and nodded. "Apparently, he appreciates her breezier approach to life."
"That's definitely Luna," Neville said, letting his eyes drift shut. "I'm happy for them."
Silence settled between them. He knew she was waiting for him to begin his story. He searched his brain for the right words, frowning when none came to mind.
"Neville," she called softly as if afraid he'd fallen asleep. "You promised."
Sighing, he let his head fall to the side. Looking into her sad, troubled eyes, he decided to just let the words come, whatever they may be. "I couldn't stay, Gin."
"Why not?"
"It was just too much."
"What was too much?" she asked.
"Everything." He sat up and rested his arms on his thighs, his butterbeer dangling from his fingers. "The battle and Bellatrix and just life—it was all so confusing."
"So you left without even saying goodbye?"
"You don't understand."
"I'm trying to get you to explain it to me," she huffed, her temper flaring.
Neville took a slow breath and let himself remember that night in the infirmary, willing the thoughts to crystallize in his mind. Finally, he said, "I didn't understand why me."
"Why you what?" she asked softly.
"Why I survived."
"I still don't understand."
Focusing on the bottle in his hand, he said, "My parents were well-liked, talented Aurors. They were good, worthy people. Everyone's always told me that. I'm practically a squib. So why did I survive Bellatrix's torture and they didn't? Why are they . . . insane and I'm not? Why did they have to lose a happy future and I get stuck with all these lonely, endless years ahead of me?"
He bowed his head. He knew without looking that she was crying. The last thing he wanted to witness was her pity for him. But she'd asked for the truth and he felt obliged to give her all of it.
"It didn't seem fair. I couldn't make sense of why my mind and body were still intact while my parents had been confined to St. Mungo's for almost my entire life. It seemed like it should be the other way around. They had so much more to offer than I did . . ."
"That's not true," Ginny declared, tears strangling her voice.
"It felt like it," he shrugged. "People mourned what happened to them. They would have gone on to accomplish brilliant things. Me? I'd never done anything particularly brilliant. I wasn't socially adept. I . . . I felt like destiny had made a mistake."
"Don't say that," she ordered.
"You asked me to explain," he reminded her gently. "I can't do that without tell you how I felt—guilty and undeserving."
"But you weren't. You avenged your parents."
"I killed someone inadvertently," Neville corrected. "And that just made things worse."
Ginny stared up at him with confused, sad eyes. "How?"
"I killed someone, Ginny."
"After what she did . . ."
Neville took Ginny's hands in his and locked his gaze on hers. "It doesn't matter what she did. I never meant to kill her. I mean, yes, I avenged my parents, but that didn't cure them. And it didn't make me feel better. It just made me feel worse."
"But we could have helped you, Nev. Harry killed Voldemort . . ."
"That was different," Neville said softly. "That was his destiny; he knew it and so did we. He had expected it. He was striving toward it, not just to avenge his parents, but to save us all. His was a noble calling. Mine was an accidental killing of a cruel, heartless woman who happened to hurt my family. They're not the same thing."
"So you just leave?" she demanded. "You just disappear? No warning, no explanation. What about those of us you left behind? Didn't we matter at all?"
Staring into Ginny's angry, devastated face, he knew he couldn't tell her the truth: that he'd felt certain that he'd never made that deep an impression on anyone. That no one cared about him enough to be hurt or bothered by his disappearance. That no one would miss him, not even her. So he sighed and said, "Of course, you mattered, Ginny. But I wasn't . . . I needed to work through things on my own."
"You still could have left a note," she said stubbornly.
"Yes, I suppose I could have," he replied, unsuccessfully trying to hide his smile.
"Don't you dare laugh at me, Neville Longbottom," she exclaimed. But a smile was blooming on her lips. "I was worried about you."
"I'm sorry, Gin."
"Why didn't you come back after you'd figured things out?"
"I met someone," he answered.
For a brief moment, Ginny stared at him openmouthed. Then she folded her arms over her stomach and leaned back into the sofa cushions. "Who?"
"Gilbert Weedmore, the herbologist. He was cataloguing the magical plants of the Netherlands."
She blinked at him. "All right. You were in the Netherlands?"
Neville shrugged. "I needed to get away. It seemed as good a place as any. Besides, who'd think to look for me there? Anyway, Gilbert and I started talking about the plants he'd discovered and he was impressed with my knowledge and interest. Next thing I knew, we were working our way across Europe. It's what I've been doing ever since."
"So why are you here now?"
He looked away. "Gran died. I'm here to settle her affairs."
"Oh, Neville, I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
They lapsed into silence. Neville finished his butterbeer while he let Ginny process everything he'd told her. When she still hadn't said anything five minutes later, he began to wonder if he should leave her alone or say something.
Finally, she said, "How long are you going to be here?"
"Another month. Maybe two."
"I'd like to see you again before you go."
"I don't think that . . ."
"There's a dinner at The Burrow Friday night. We'll all be there—Ron, Hermione, Harry, Luna. I know they'll want to see you."
"I didn't come to England intending to rekindle old friendships, Gin."
"Yes, I puzzled that part out for myself, Neville," she snapped. "But your leaving affected us, too. Coming to dinner is the least you can do."
Neville took one look at her flashing, brown eyes and knew that she wouldn't accept no for an answer. "Should I bring anything?"
"Just yourself."
"What time?"
"Meet me here at six."
"All right," he said as he got to his feet. "I should probably go. There's still a lot of work to do at Gran's house."
Ginny stood, too, and walked him to the door. "Okay."
"Thanks for dinner, Gin."
"You're welcome. Friday, six o'clock."
He really didn't want to go to a Weasley family dinner, but he knew that she'd come after him if he didn't show. Plastering a smile on his face to hide his reluctance, Neville turned toward her with his hand resting on the doorknob. "I'll be here."