"How do you know Brian Stevens?" Neville repeated.

"He...he was my boyfriend."

"What?"

"Must I repeat that for you?" I asked solemnly.

"No, I heard you the first time. It's just...it sounds wrong."

"Why?"

"You don't seem to be the type of girl to get mixed with—"

"I'm not." I sneezed. "I don't fall for bad boys or smartasses. He just happened to be wearing a mask during the time I knew him."

"How come you never told me this?"

"Well, for one thing, prior to his escape, he wasn't a direct threat to me. And for another, I don't open up to people I don't know right away."

"Right. Sorry, I forgot."

"I noticed."

"You sounded really scared, like he was going to murder you or something."

I cleared my throat. "In order to understand my hysterical episode you were at the tail end of, you need to understand the history behind it. And there is quite a bit.

"Honestly, I can't remember exactly how it happened, but once he and I started talking, we shared a bond." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, looking down at my feet. "I think it was my...fifth year things went bad. Yeah, it was. Dumbledore's passing had been then. Anyway, we had started dating back in my fourth year, your fifth obviously. He was—still is—two years older than me. Slytherin House, pureblood of course. When he was with me, he didn't care about my blood status. I found that to be a good quality, because you know how some purebloods are."

"I'm pureblood, and honestly I don't care about that nonsense."

I paused momentarily. "I was shy around new people, but I quickly got attached to Brian. I got along with some of my girlfriends that quickly, but he was, I think, the only guy I ever talked to so openly.

"He hadn't joined that Inquisitorial Squad when Dolores Umbridge took over Hogwarts, so I was grateful for that. He would go out of his way to be with me—sometimes breaking the rules. I thought it was sweet, with a hint of stupidity.

"My fifth year...that's when things changed." My tone went low and somewhat dark. "Brian had been a bit...off that year. It was his last year at Hogwarts. I never got a straight answer out of him. Not right off the bat. It was the night that Dumbledore died that I got my answer."

I had to fight back the urge to hurl and continued on: "He was to be branded with the Dark Mark soon. I thought that he was afraid of being pulled into that world, so I tried to convince him to pull out of it. It was evident that I didn't know him very well. He actually wanted to be one of them. He just couldn't wait to join that cult. And then he went on about how—how I could be a useful ally to them. He wanted to recruit me.

"I asked him if that whole time we meant anything at all to him. We did, for a time. His love for joining the Death Eaters ran that over. He still wanted us to be a couple, which was part of the reason why he wanted me to join.

"The more I protested, the angrier he got. I threatened to tell Dumbledore about him, and that's when Brian went into detail about the plan to assassinate the headmaster. I was prepared to run to the nearest professor to rat him out, but Brian had me by the arm." I buried my face in my hands.

"What did he do to you?" Neville asked hesitantly.

"He...he beat me," I choked. A sob escaped my throat. "He didn't use any curses. I was lucky he hadn't gone that far, but I was sure he would have if he'd thought it necessary. I was on the brink of going under after he was done. He abandoned me not long after. If I said a word about anything I'd heard, the beating I'd gotten would seem like child's play.

"In that abuse, our relationship was done. It had been done long before that, I just hadn't seen it."

"What did you do next?" There was sheer horror in Neville's voice.

"I went to the hospital wing. I lied to Madam Pomfrey about how I got my injuries. I was afraid word would slip, Brian would hear, and then he'd carry out his threat. Our next encounter was in the Battle of Hogwarts," I continued. "Brian is the reason one of my friends is dead, he did the deed himself." Poor Penelope. It's hard to imagine her without imagining him. "Hearing he has been in Azkaban this whole time and now broke out...I fear that..."

"That he'll come after you," Neville finished for me in a whisper.

"Yes."

"You never told your parents?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Neville, if you were me and feared what would happen, you'd be too scared to tell anyone." I shivered.

"Your injuries certainly couldn't have been healed by the time we were all sent home."

"They weren't. Even people on the train asked, strangers I didn't even so much as acknowledge. I lied to my friends about it; I didn't want them to get involved."

"Do you realize that he could've been put away a long time ago if you had?"

"Yeah, but you understand why I couldn't, right?"

"Jenelle...I'm really sorry all that happened to you."

I looked up from my hands at Neville. "I should've seen it coming! Ravenclaws are supposed to be intelligent. I certainly wasn't then."

"It was one time. You were in love. Love can blind people sometimes. It's hard to control."

"How would you know? You've never been in love, have you?"

"No, but I've seen enough of it to know. You can't blame yourself for what happened."

"I just..." I broke down into tears. Neville took me in his arms. "D-did you see anything when you came in, or hear anything?" I sniffled as the sobs started to die away.

"No, nothing," Neville reported. "Why?"

"I saw Brian in the tent."

"I didn't see anybody. I think it's because of how ill you are."

"So it was a...a hallucination? He didn't come into the tent?"

"It's the only explanation I've got."

"I'll take it."

"Now we have more than one reason why you should start feeling better," Neville sighed.

My stomach growled at me so loud that my arms wrapped around it and my face went scarlet. "Please tell me you brought food; my stomach is about to eat itself."

"I figured as much, but don't worry. Starving was worth it." He smiled.

I hadn't realized that Neville had a hold of me still until he left. I wiped my tearstained face.

I sat on the cot for a few more moments until I decided I could take my mind off all this by helping Neville. I got the cauldron running.

I ended up eating about a good half of the food Neville set out for us both. I felt a tad bit better, but I felt so full I wanted to go to sleep again.

Just because Neville prepared the food didn't mean that he had to do all the work when it came to cleaning up; we shared that part equally. I scrubbed the cauldron clean and dry while Neville got the rest.

"You must be feeling better," he noted.

I pulled myself out of the cauldron to stare at him, shrugging. "I wish Hermione had packed ingredients."

"Why?"

"Good potion maker, remember?" I rose. "I was mostly the top of my class. There was barely a potion that I couldn't make."

"In the beginning of my Hogwarts years, I was terrible," Neville confessed. "On top of that, Professor Snape wasn't exactly the nicest to me."

"Yeah, he always had his favorites," I huffed. "I still impressed him though. When Slughorn was teaching, he loved me."

"I still need to perfect my skills even now. If we ever get out of this mess, do you mind teaching me?"

"Of course."

"Were you ever weak in any subject?"

"Sort of," I confessed as I tossed the rag onto the rim of the cauldron and sat on my cot. "Herbology I struggled in."

"Herbology, really? That's still my best. I expected you to be like Hermione, she's really smart."

I went kind of pink in the face at that. Only my girlfriends commended me on my intelligence. Brian rarely had. "I wonder why she was never put into Ravenclaw."

"Loyalty to her friends?"

"Probably," I considered.

"Is there anything else I don't know about you?" he teased.

"A lot. Why am I telling everything about me? I know almost nothing about you. All I know is that you're pureblood, sorted into Gryffindor, was once very shy and have definitely grown stronger over the years in many ways, helped with Dumbledore's Army, and you were a hero during the Battle of Hogwarts."

"That seems a bit more than almost nothing. You remembered all that?"

"Yeah, did I mention I have sort of a good memory, too?" I said sheepishly.

"You forgot to mention it," he teased. "How'd you know I was in Gryffindor? I don't remember telling you that."

"Oh, I thought you had. Oh well, it was a guess then. Tell me something."

"I don't really have a dark past, but something did happen to me a long time ago," he confessed.

I'd remembered Neville had mentioned he'd gone through a dark time once. "I can understand if you don't want to talk about it," I said immediately.

"No, no, I'm okay with talking about it." Neville took the rag that I had put on the rim of the cauldron and began trying to wipe his hands off.

"That's got food and stuff on it," I warned him.

"It'll be washed tomorrow," he said. "Seventeen years ago, a witch by the name of Bellatrix Lestrange used the Cruciatus Curse on my parents."

My eyes got wide, my mouth slightly dropped, and my heart expanded a bit in sympathy. "Oh my God..." I whispered.

"She tortured them for information," he said solemnly. "But they never gave in."

"What happened to them and to you?"

"I was sent to live with Gran. I still do, but I'm not there all the time. As for my parents, they're still at St. Mungo's. I would visit them if I had more time."

"Neville, I—I never would've thought..." My voice trailed. "I'm so sorry."

"Honestly, I'm proud to be their son."

"I'm sure they're proud of you too," I whispered. "If they heard what you're doing now...I can only imagine how happy they'd be!"

"They probably would be." There was a hint of sadness in his tone.

"What is it?"

"Bellatrix tortured them so badly that—that the effects are incurable. They're permanent residents there. They deemed my mother insane."

"Oh dear..."

"They don't recognize me when I go there."

"That's awful."

"It's not all bad, at least my mum knows I'm someone she's fond of."

"It is something," I agreed. "Where is Bellatrix? I want to give her a piece of my—"

"She's dead."

"She is? Damn!"

Neville gave an apathetic laugh. "Yeah, Ron's mother took care of her after Bellatrix tried to kill Ron's sister, Ginny."

"That must've felt good for you, knowing she's dead."

"It kind of was, but it's not like it helped my parents any."

Here I thought all this time I had the worst life in the world. Everyone had their own vices, of all different degrees.