"What's wrong?" Neville asked, looking at Harry, who had suddenly gone blank.
"Nothing, nothing." Harry shook his head, feeling dazed.
He had only gone to the Headmaster's Office. How had the war suddenly ended?
"Hermione... I'm not dreaming, am I?" Ron couldn't help asking. "We really defeated Voldemort?"
"I think you can say his name openly now," Hermione said.
She found it just as hard to believe.
Of course, it wasn't that the end of the war was a bad thing. It was just... unexpected.
And Hermione had a very strange feeling, as if they had done nothing at all.
After all, even Neville beside them looked filthy and battered, with dried blood visible beneath the grime. Then she looked at the three of them...
Hermione couldn't see what she looked like, but although Harry and Ron's robes were filthy, they themselves still looked relatively clean. Standing beside Neville, they seemed utterly out of place.
"It's good that you're all right." Neville had no idea what Hermione was thinking. He had spotted Kyle ahead and hurried over excitedly.
"I heard about it. You actually defeated Volde... I mean... Voldemort." Neville shuddered, but he still forced himself to say the name, making his face turn deathly pale.
"Not me. Everyone did it together," Kyle corrected him. "I wasn't a match for Voldemort on my own. Without Mikel's help, Voldemort would have killed me in the Great Hall long ago."
"Oh, really?" Neville drifted off for a moment.
Naturally, he knew the name Mikel. Though they had never interacted much, the name had left a deep impression on him.
Because the sentence he had heard most often in Potions Class was... Your talent for Potions is even worse than Drake's.
Drake—Mikel Drake—was a name Neville had heard for seven years. Of course