Neville out-of-character

During the well-known emotional scene where HRH run into Neville in the hospital, there was a line that confused me.

"Neville looked around at the others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh"

Maybe I'm misreading it, but I take the word "defiant" as meaning angry. This would be a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Neville...if it was towards someone who actually would dare to do that.

But these are Neville's friends! Sure, Harry is a bit of an asshole in this book, and Ron can sometimes be insensitive sometimes, and Hermione did use Petrificus Totalus on him once, but they're obviously not going to laugh at Neville for having parents who were literally tortured out of their minds, to the point that they can hardly be classified as "alive" anymore then someone who's suffered the dementor's kiss.

As awful as it clearly is for Neville to live with his parents being in the state they're in, he also knows that Harry and his friends very well at this point. And that they're in now way lacking in empathy to the point they'd ever laugh at Neville for his greatest trauma. (In particular Harry, who's parents are dead!) I could easily give him the benefit of the doubt about being confused and uncomfortable about them all being there, if maybe later at school he assured them he knew they would never laugh. But from what I recall, later at school he doesn't even talk to them, as if he's still angry at them. The worst thing is that Harry knew about this and didn't say a word to Ron and Hermione about it (sure Dumbledore made him promise, but Harry also wanted to respect Neville). I know that Neville doesn't know that Harry knows, but it's still rough that this is how Neville essentially repays Harry for keeping his secret. Even worse is the fact that in his previous scene, Neville was genuinely worried for Harry having "nightmares" and ran to get McGonagall. Even later on the train ride home when Neville finally does acknowledge the hospital meeting, it's sort of out of the blue and HRH don't really know how to react, but at least he seems to have forgiven them by then.

I get that this was supposed to be a CMOA for Neville standing up for himself and his parents, but it really should have gone to someone who deserved it like Draco. Harry and his friends just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Neville's grandmother wasn't exactly making it easy for them to leave by trying to chat with them. In the end, Neville is an incredibly nice character who deserves better, and who has a truly tragic backstory. However, it feels like maybe he took Ron's advice from back in PS about learning to stand up to people a little too far. I mean, even when he stood up to the trio in PS, it was clear he didn't want to.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, I don't know.

EDIT: Several people have mentionted that "defiant" isn't the same thing as "angry". Still, it felt a little to me like Neville was blaming Harry and the others simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.