Just before noon, sometime after the Cold Winter debriefing.


Fauna stood at her desk and flipped through the files that had accumulated while she'd been in that Very Important meeting with all the Rather Scary department heads. They didn't mean to be scary, she supposed. They just were. She'd spoken up much more than she'd thought she would have to, and only hoped she wouldn't look back in five years and cringe at whatever random, rookie thing she'd said.

Time for a coffee break. A real one.

Covering a yawn, Fauna poked her head out into the aisle between the rows of cubicles, looking to see who was around. Roh, maybe. Bailey always seemed to be here, but he hoarded coffee. No coffee for Bailey. Neville! She could always spot the top of his head over the cubicle walls. Neville was here. She hadn't had a chance to talk to him yet today or yesterday.

Grabbing her coat, her purse, and her useless wand, she made her way over.

Since discovering that he hadn't told anyone about the pentral possessing him, Fauna had tried to keep an eye out for Neville Longbottom. She'd helped explain the pentral situation to the higher-ups when he'd told her.[1] She'd paid attention that last week in November, and the first week of December, in a way similar to how she'd checked in on Abby Reid. With Abby she'd been more familiar, more persistent. With Auror Longbotton, she'd simply made a point to stop by his cubicle, ask after him, tell him funny things about her life. Little things that might make him laugh.

Fauna knew he'd lost his Gran in early December. She'd signed the sympathy card and had scooted her chair over when he'd gotten back from leave, just to offer sympathy in person.

She'd managed to keep an eye out until, well, the full moon ambush in December. And after that, there'd been the haunting at Grimshaw's tailor shop. And after that, she'd gone on holiday and come down with the measles and had returned just yesterday, still with the measles, face flushed not from sickness but embarrassment over Virgil's song.[2]

So really, she'd managed for a short amount of time, and then her life had taken over, as it did.

"Hey," Fauna greeted him brightly as she stopped by his desk. She paused for a moment, the pause she usually made when summoning her courage to be friendly to the friendly Aurors.

"I'm dashing out to Alohomocha before I get dragged into another meeting," she rolled her eyes, happily humble-bragging. "Do you want anything?"

Everyone on Level Two knew that Fauna greatly resented it when Aurors asked her to fetch coffee, but when they didn't ask, she didn't mind.

1.	Even if I said it'll be alright
2.	Why

Neville was absorbed in doing paperwork, nothing extensive, just every day fair. Though it was enough to keep him distracted, so much so that he didn't notice that Fauna had approached him until she spoke.

He smiled up at the trainee, "Hey Stranger." Fauna had been a near constant presence for him after he had confided in her after his Pentral Possession. She had convinced him to tell their superiors about it and had even joined him when he told them. After that she checked in on him regularly until her own life had pulled her away.

"Actually mind if I join you?" He stood up and stepped back from his desk, "I could use the exercise." He exited the cubicle and looked her over, noticing the slight pallor to her skin, "how you feeling? Heard you got hit with the measles." It was nice to be able to show concern and affection without the addition of inappropriate comments in the back of his mind. For the few things that he did sort of miss about his dark passenger, the spirit's infatuation with the younger trainee was not one of them.

She raised her eyebrows in happy surprise when Neville offered to join.

"I'm alright," she smiled, touched that he asked so sincerely. It was refreshing, on Level Two!

"The contagious and uh, sickly aspect is gone. No more coughing and sneezing. Now I'm just getting used to not having magic," she spread out her hands. No magic! She hoped it would come back sooner rather than later.

Fauna walked with him through the bullpen. She waited till they'd made it through the loud, bustling atrium and in and out of the floo and on the streets of Diagon before turning to him curiously as she brushed the floo powder off her jacket.

"How have you been? How were your holidays, New Year's? I feel like it's been ages," she said with a touch of guilt.

They hadn't taken time to catch a break like this since mid-December. He seemed a bit more confident and sure in the new year, or was that just her imagination? Fauna wondered how he was coping with the pentral possession. It must have made the holidays more complicated.

"No magic? That's rough mate." He decided not to try and offer any platitudes or advice. She was already having a tough time, she didn't need his unnecessary commentary to go along with it.

The pair travelled comfortably through the Ministry, the regular hustle and bustle of the work day making it hard to get a word or two in. He was thankful that she didn't try. He would have politely responded as best he could but it would have been a nightmare just to hear what she was saying.

As they stepped out into the streets of London, Neville gave a shrug, "Not too bad I suppose. Didn't really get up to much. Went by Harry and Ginny's after Christmas and watched a football game with some mates from school."

"Everyone's been kind of . . . Weird 'round me. I didn't tell anyone about -" he dodged a pedestrian that was too focused on their mobile to notice them, "you know. Just with losing me Gran. She's pretty much the only family I had left. Feels like everyone's been walking on eggshells."

"How was yours?"

She smiled, appreciating his sympathy. There were much worse things than losing magic. She'd get it back, right? Virgil seemed to think so. She hoped so.

Fauna didn't think she'd ever get used to hearing Neville Longbottom refer to his friends as 'Harry' and 'Ginny', but then again, maybe she would, considering that she saw Potter around the office most days. The name would always hold weight, but for Fauna, she hadn't known anything until she'd turned eleven, and even then, she'd spent her adolescence hearing about the aftermath of the war, not witnessing it.

Perhaps it was odd that she felt comfortable around Auror Longbottom, but what he did here and now, in his day to day life, was what she remembered. That and his Auror skill of dodging distracted pedestrians.

"Oof!" She ran into a witch, and apologized as she walked around.

What had he been saying? People had been acting weird around him and walking on eggshells. That was awful.

She didn't know what he meant by 'you know'. He hadn't told anyone about 'you know'?

"Um," she started to say. She reached the door of Alohomocha and held it open behind her.

The cafe was less crowded than the street, but not by much. She joined the end of the queue.

"I'm sorry," she offered. "About, you know-" Oh Merlin. "People acting differently."

Her brow furrowed as she looked at him, searching his face. She could only imagine what it must feel like to lose the last of his family, and to feel like no one quite knew how to react.

"Er, my holidays were good," she managed a happier tone. "I went to a New Year's Eve party at my friend Virgil's." He was her friend now, too bad for him. It was the only way she could justify his serenade.

"Someone spiked the drinks with Logorrhea, which made some of us - not me - act silly. Sillier. Dumber. Really dumb, actually," she cringed. Some of them had made dumb choices! Not her. No sir. She shook her head, reminded of her argument with Fig and Moira.

Fig was forgiven, though. He'd showed up with coffee the next day, and Anton had been there too, and the day had gone from terrible to wonderful when...

Fauna reached the counter, and ordered a classic mocha, and a few coffees for the trainees, and stepped back to wait.

She glanced at Auror Longbottom, thinking about telling him. She was dying to tell someone. It was something good! It had to do with family, but it also had to do with family, and after everything he'd just been through, with his Gran, and spending the holiday with other families, she hesitated. She didn't want to be that person who acted differently around him. She didn't want to make him feel worse, either.