Title: Simple

Summary: You don't have to be a hero to be my hero. NevilleLuna oneshot.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

A/N: I've never written a NevilleLuna story before, but looking for a new challenge I came up with this. Honest opinions are very much appreciated!

A/N2: The way Neville is portrayed is not my opinion of him, but his own low self-esteem talking.

I should have been there at the final battle. It wasn't supposed to end this way. I wasn't supposed to end up this way.

Harry has always been the hero. My hero. He has saved our lives so many times and yet he has remained so modest. He deserved a better fate than this. Maybe if I had been there...

No.

It wouldn't have changed anything. I'm not a hero. She wouldn't have stayed alive if I had been by their side. I couldn't have saved Ginny, and not just because of my condition. I'm a coward. I've always been. Gran even said it and she's supposedly the one who loved me most. I'm a disappointment to my parents so it's probably a good thing that they don't remember me. This way they don't have to feel the embarrassment. They deserved to have a son like Harry, with everything they've done to oppose the Dark Lord. He'd make them proud. Maybe they would have remembered him.

How will anybody ever be able to love me? I'm not good-looking, like Harry and Ron, and I'm not witty like Dean or smart like Hermione. I'm me, clumsy, fat, boring Neville Longbottom. Oh, and I'm in a wheelchair now. Which, ironically, has given me more attention from women –or rather a woman – than I would ever have gotten if I had been able to walk. And that woman...ah face it Nev, she would never be here if she didn't feel guilty. She pities me, you know. I see it in the way she looks at me: her eyes avoiding mine whenever I try to lock eyes with her. She wouldn't be here if she had anywhere else to go. We're condemned for each other.

(Luna's POV)

I see him sitting there by the fire and my heart aches. Poor Neville. If I could just...do something. He has been so wonderful lately...not even blaming me once when it was me who deflected the curse and made him what he is today. It would have been me instead of him. Should have been me. I'm changed now, but I don't think he notices. I smile and joke and talk about creatures I no longer believe in. Quirky Luna with her dreamy outlook on the world died when she had to face reality. She couldn't handle death, or blood. So she sacrificed herself for a new Luna, one that still doesn't seem to fit my skin. She's grown-up. Mature. She doesn't smile so much anymore, simply because she can't find any reason to. And part of me misses old Luna so much that I feel empty, but somehow I feel that this is supposed to be for the best. I have to be strong to survive a world like this. A world which knows no longer justice, only death and pain. Neville, who can't move his legs anymore because of some Death Eaters curse. Neville knows pain. And Harry, who lost the love of his life. Destroying Voldemort didn't bring her back. They know pain. I don't deserve to feel sorry for myself for losing part of who I was. I'm still here. I can walk. I'm with the man I love.

Then why do I feel so empty?

(Neville's POV)

She thinks I don't notice but I do. Being in a wheelchair has made me much more of an observer . "Loony" Lovegood has changed into Luna. She doesn't even read the Quibbler anymore and she threw her Spectrespecs in the trash. I took them out just in case. Another thing that strikes me is her lying. She used to be breathtakingly honest. Now she mumbles 'fine' whenever someone asks her how she's doing. I stopped asking her that months ago.

Months. Sometimes I still can't believe that almost a year has passed since the final battle. Ginny's been dead for eleven months and eighteen days. I know, cause Harry told me so. It's the only thing he ever talks about; when he comes to visit me at all, that is. Ron says he barely leaves the house anymore. He isn't doing that well himself either. Ginny was his sister, of course, and if that wasn't bad enough Hermione has asked for a time-out. She's a bit like Luna, I suppose. Trying to find her way in a world that will never be the same again.

In a way I should be thankful. Maybe I would have died too in that battle. Or maybe I would have gone crazy at the sight of my friends in mortal peril. It has happened to many a man stronger than me. I'm not sure if I would have been strong enough to be of any use at all. Well, we'll never know, will we? I'll never be a hero now. I'll never make my parents proud. I'll never find love cause who'd love a coward like me? I should have died in battle. It'd be far less a cruel fate than this half-life I'm forced to live.

(Luna's POV)

He's so strong. Everyday he fights his own battle, along with that of many others. His friends come to him for advice or merely a shoulder to cry on. He's good at giving comfort. He let's them cry, yet never weeps himself. I asked him once, he answered that there weren't enough tears left. He couldn't feel sorry for himself when there were others who had much more reason to grieve. We're very alike, him and me. That's probably why I feel so whole around him. He's the only one that can do that nowadays. He completes me. He's my hero.

(Neville's POV)

She's there when I can't go on anymore. She's there to dry the imaginary tears and often she cries because I cannot. She's everything I ever wished for and I wish that she would just leave. She deserves a better life than to be stuck with a handicapped, depressed man. Most of all, she shouldn't be here with a man that she doesn't love. And yet she stays, when nobody forces her to do so. She stays out of pity, while my foolish heart hopes otherwise.

I love her. It's as simple as that. But it is never just as simple as that.

And then she walks in, puts her arms around me for comfort I can't quite give. Her eyes are watery as she looks – really looks – at me for the first time in weeks. And I know she knows my troubles, my darkest thoughts, because her voice is soft and gentle as she speaks words I'm sure I don't deserve:

"You don't have to be a hero to be my hero Neville. And you are...my hero."

She says so much more that evening; and we come to the understanding that perhaps we do have reason to grieve. But there is reason for joy also.

Sometimes it is just as simple as that.

Review please!