The nursery was still and quiet, lit only by the last of the summer sun drifting through the blue curtains. The only noise was the gentle gurgling of the chubby dark haired baby as he waved at the patchwork cats who were twirling softly around on the mobile above his cradle.
Bellatrix chuckled softly as she saw him enthusiastically waggle his chubby little fingers at the purple and yellow cat. She closed the door softly and tiptoed over to the cradle, laughing and blowing kisses at the pictures framing the wall as she went. Her laugh was harsh and unfriendly; it made the child start and look around him. She held out her arms and smiled, gently picking him up and hoisting him on her hip.
"Hello Neville!" she cooed, straightening out his little woolly jumper. He regarded her curiously, reached out to grab a curl. She feigned surprise and blew a raspberry, much to his delight. "Are we going on a little walk then?" she said. "Yes? You're not sleepy at all, we'll go and tell Mummy and Daddy! Yes we will!" As she walked down the hallway, she carefully untwined her hair from his grip, replacing it instead with her wand. She placed her hand around his, holding the wand steady.
And so she burst into the living room perfectly armed.
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No one ever told Neville that Bellatrix Lestrange held him as she tortured his mother and father. No one told him that she had smoothed down his soft curls and hushed his crying, before correcting his grip on her wand. No one told him that she had wiped the terrified tears away from his chubby cheeks as his parents screamed.
In truth; only her husband and a few other Death Eaters knew. And they were thrown into Azkaban to rot with her. Yet as she curled her arm around him in the Department of Mysteries, the haunting, shadowy memory of that night crept into Neville's mind. The same fingers brushed across his hair, the same curls tickled the back of his neck, but the same wand was aimed at his throat.
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It was Neville who picked up her body from the rubble of the Great Hall and placed it on a stretcher. She was surprisingly light, despite the tangle of hair and swish of skirt and he thought of the fourteen years she had spent starving. Her bony hands, still cramped around her wand, bore testiment to those years, as did her pale, sunken cheeks. Although her skin had almost turned translucent and waxy as the life had left her body, making her truly seem dead, it was still obvious that she had once been so terribly beautiful.
He uncurled her talons and snapped her wand with a satisfying crack.
He threw the pieces in one of the fires.