LUCY:

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

The world around me was pitch black. The only indication I was falling was the whoosh of air around me and the steady tug of gravity.

Suddenly, Cedric above me.

"I'm right here! Take my hand!" he shouted.

But the harder I strained trying to reach him, the faster I fell.

"Cedric!" I screamed.

The world around me pitched. Cedric disappeared into the blackness, and I pulled my hands back into my chest.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

The world around me was full of color. I recognized the walls of the cave from which I had escaped.

Fireworks sizzled around me.

"Get her! Don't let her escape!" Lucius Malfoy shouted.

A thick arm wrapped around my throat, pulling me back.

"No!" I shrieked.

The stolen wand fell from my hand, clattered to the rock below me, sent me flying backward with the force of an explosion.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

I jerked awake. No longer falling. Suffocating.

Danger. Something told me there was danger.

I pushed myself to a sitting position and snatched my wand off of my nightstand, holding it out in front of me with two trembling hands.

It was dawn. The weakest ray of sunlight peeked between the red curtains.

My other three roommates were sleeping still. The room was silent.

That explained why my heartbeat was so deafening.

I remained in that position until my neck and shoulders ached with the effort of holding my arms out so far. Sharp pain coursed from my injured hand all the way up my arm and made me gasp from the suddenness and severity of it.

There was no danger. I had just overreacted.

Madam Pomfrey's warning from the day before whispered in the back of my mind — "You will be more sensitive to pain than perhaps you have ever been, so you will need to be incredibly careful not to overexert yourself. No Quidditch, and certainly no adventures with Harry Potter. I know the transformations are unfortunately unavoidable, but you will need to rely on the Room of Requirement more than ever. You cannot risk another incident like the one you had in August, because I can see even now that one nearly killed you, Lucy." — but I forced it away.

I wasn't fragile. I wasn't weak.

I was a Gryffindor.

I was tough. I was brave.

And I was going to prove it.

Neville and I happened to walk into the common room at the same time, and we exchanged an amused look.

"You've got your gloves?" he asked, pulling his out of his pocket.

I nodded, showing him mine, which I had already donned in order to hide the wound from the previous night's detention. I noticed his eyes widen slightly. They had been Mum's professional gloves, meaning they were among the best gloves in the world. I thought about giving them to Neville, Herbology lover that he was, but his hands were too large. My hands fit perfectly.

I knew I'd never be able to fill Mum's shoes. She had been one of the most famous Aurors in the world in her day. But her gloves? I could try to fill those.

"Do you know what Professor Sprout has in mind?" I inquired as we started making our way down the stairs.

"She asked if I would take care of feeding the Chinese chomping cabbages!" he exclaimed. "She's heard from Hagrid that you like helping feed the magical creatures in the reserve, so she thought you might enjoy feeding plants in the greenhouses, too."

"I'm looking forward to it," I replied, but I felt something twist in my chest. Dad had inspired my love of creatures. Mum had given me my green thumb. I swallowed away my pain and opted for a topic that would allow Neville to talk and me to listen. "So you said your great uncle Algie gave you the Mimbulus mimbletonia?"

Neville nodded and immediately launched into a detailed description of all the ways he had learned to care for it, mostly by trial and error. He kept talking all the way down to the greenhouses and kept talking as we started working, moving from cabbage to cabbage and feeding each accordingly — Professor Sprout had given Neville a key to the greenhouses so the two of us could work alone. It was nice, so nice, to have the distraction. At Grimmauld Place, I was used to everyone turning to face me when I walked in, people talking in low voices, furtive (and not so furtive) glances my direction every time I moved or made a sound. But with Neville, who knew nothing of what happened over summer, I felt almost normal for the first time in a long time. I wasn't Lucy the werewolf, Lucy the orphan, Lucy the kidnapped, Lucy the American. I was just Lucy, the girl who liked Herbology too.

It was... so nice.

So — naturally — I had to ruin it. At least I didn't ruin it until the end of the final row of cabbages.

My shaking uninjured hand accidentally dropped the heavy bag of carrots on my shaking injured hand.

Which wouldn't have been that big of a deal just a few months earlier.

I was a werewolf. My pain tolerance was off the charts, always had been.

But between the caves and the quill, I couldn't bite back the loud yelp that escaped me when the bag — naturally — landed directly on top of the words I must not tell lies.

"Lucy, are you okay?" Neville asked, instantly shoving the carrot he was holding into the mouth of the nearest plant and reaching out for the hand I was cradling to my chest.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, but the tears that had involuntarily filled my eyes betrayed the truth. "I-I just hurt my hand yesterday, and the bag landed right on top, my hands were shaking so I dropped it and..." I hurriedly swiped away the tear that had escaped with my uninjured hand, and Neville's eyes widened when he saw the other one, the injured one.

"You're bleeding all the way through the glove!" His hands shot forward before I could pull away, and he slipped the glove off. His eyes widened even further when he saw the words carved into my skin. "Lu-Lucy-"

I pulled my hand back to my chest, shaking my head. "It's fine. N-No big deal. I just overreacted is all."

"Overreacted," he repeated in a disbelieving whisper. I watched in silence as a number of gears began to turn in his head, just behind his eyes, which were locked on my hand even though he could no longer see the bleeding words. "Lucy... are you alright?"

I froze. Then I made a decision.

"You recognized the potion yesterday, didn't you? And you've seen me shaking?"

Neville nodded.

I nodded back. "Th-Then you already know the answer, I-I think."

"B-But how- why-"

"It's a long story," I replied quietly. "I-I just-"

Neville opened his arms suddenly. "C-Can I...?"

I nodded and let him wrap his arms around me. I was careful to keep my hand facing outward so I didn't get blood on his robes — the back of my hand was still stinging painfully.

"I'm so sorry, Lucy, no one in the world deserves that less than you, I..."

I shook my head as we pulled apart. "It's alright. It's already happened. I-I'd just really like for the shaking to stop, honestly, the pain I can handle. M-Most of the time, anyway."

"The shaking comes and goes," he whispered, leaning back against the table and putting his hands in his pockets. "If you don't mind my asking, when was...?"

"Late July, early August. It was about a week before I escaped, if I remember correctly," I replied in an equally soft voice.

"It was- it was that long?"

I nodded.

Neville's eyes widened even further, but he composed himself after a minute and glanced down at his shoes. "The shaking should stop soon. B-But it comes and goes. Sometimes it'll get really bad again, but it'll get better eventually."

"Is there anything else I should know?" I asked. "It's okay if you'd rather not talk about it, I just-"

"No, no, Lucy, you've helped me so much, I want to help you," he replied, nearly tripping over his words because he was speaking so rapidly. "I-I don't know off the top of my head because I try not to think about it while I'm here, but I'll let you know, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, Neville, I just don't know anyone else who..." I had a sudden realization. "A-Actually, no. I do know one person who..." I swallowed hard. "Harry. Voldemort, he..." I crossed my arms over my midsection, wincing as I accidentally touched the back of my hand.

Neville didn't miss my little wince. He blinked. "Lucy, can I see that again?"

I nodded, holding my hand out.

"'I must not tell lies'...? Lucy, did you do this to yourself?"

"No. Well, yes, but... not in the way you might think." I sighed. "Neville, can you promise not to tell anyone else what actually happened?"

"I... of course, yes, but what happened?"

I swallowed hard. "Umbridge. She has these quills that carve whatever the line is onto your hand. So I did do it to myself, technically, but it was her, it was detention-"

"That's horrible!" For the first time ever, I saw anger flash in Neville's eyes. It seemed there was anger aplenty those days. "Lucy, you have to tell someone."

I shook my head. "N-No. Harry and I aren't going to get in trouble with her anymore. Professor McGonagall wants us to keep our heads down, so we will. It's not worth it, Neville, really."

"It's worth it to me," he said fiercely. "Neither of you deserve this for telling the truth."

"It's like I said yesterday," I replied in a whisper. "My mum died for the truth. I can get by with the one detention."

"What do you mean by that? You said it yesterday... d-did she really?"

I nodded. I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes, so gentle and sad. "They killed my parents and tortured me. All because of that article my mum wrote that said Voldemort was back."

Neville didn't speak for a minute. "Y-You know, Lucy. If my parents have taught me anything, it's that sometimes our sacrifices have far-reaching impacts. I-I've never been told what the information was, but I know that whatever it was, they decided it was worth it to sacrifice themselves. A-And sure, their sacrifice has impacted my life, but I like to believe it impacted someone else's, too. A-And that it impacted theirs for the better. I guess what I'm trying to say is, well..." He swallowed hard. "I don't want anything to happen to you, Lucy. S-So I really do hope you stay out of trouble. I would understand, though, if you decided this was worth standing up for, and I would want to stand up with you if that's what you decided."

I glanced up, and our eyes met.

"You really mean that?" I asked quietly. "Neville, I don't want to ask you to fight." I held up my hand, which had finally stopped bleeding. "I don't want to have to see you do this, too, I don't want to see you hurt, too."

"I really mean it," he replied, steadfast in his resolve. "You don't have to decide today. Or tomorrow, or the day after that. But... think about it, okay?"

I nodded slowly. "Okay. Thank you, Neville."

He offered a weak smile. "Of course. I really do mean it. Now, let's see if we can find something to take care of your hand. I know Professor Sprout keeps first aid supplies in the next greenhouse over."

"That would be good," I said with a nod. "This way, if anyone asks about the bandages, I can just say I was bitten by a cabbage."

Neville's smile widened a bit. "That works. I still think you should tell someone about the quill, though." He passed me my bloodied glove, and the two of us headed to the next greenhouse in search of the first aid supplies.

A/N: Thank you all for reading! I'm so sorry this is so late — it's still technically Saturday where I live, but I know it is likely Sunday for most of you by the time you're reading this. I've barely had WiFi since New Year's, and that obstacle plus writer's block made this chapter difficult. But I'm happy with how it turned out in the end, and I hope you all enjoy it, too!

Thank you for sticking with me, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2021 treats you all well. :) Love yoooooou!