A/N: Neville takes care of his mum. For QLFC, Season 6, Round 10.
Bonus prompts: (object) television, (object) blanket, (dialogue) "My baby! They stole my baby!" / "You don't have a baby."
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The television in Alice Longbottom's room was buzzing with static, yet Neville watched as his mother stared at it and giggled out loud at it. Neville was twenty-four years old now, and his mother was forty-three; it still alarmed him whenever she did something that wasn't quite...right.
"What's so funny, Mum?" he said quietly. He always spoke in soft tones, so as not to distress her. However, his words were meant to calm himself more than anything else. A couple weeks ago, his father, Frank Longbottom, had died in the hospital. He had tried to run from the Healers and fallen down a flight of stairs, hitting his head a little too hard on the way down. After his death, Alice had been severely distressed, and he hadn't been allowed to visit until today.
He came in every two days to visit his mother, and each time he helped her to wash her hair. It was a highly intimate action for the nurses to do to Alice, so Neville only ever did it for her. She was his mum, after all, and after everything she'd sacrificed, it was the least he could do to wash her hair every now and then. "Want to give me your hand, Mum?" This was his favorite part, because each time, she stared absently at him before holding her finger out to him like a mother would do to a baby before the infant grasped it with all his strength. He curled his strong fingers around her skeletal one and lifted the blanket, guiding her to the bathroom door. The way she walked… It was like he was guiding an eighty-year-old woman, not his mother. Alice staggered like Quasimodo, her back hunched, wobbling with every step she took.
Seating his mother in a tall chair before the sink, he sighed. "Lean your head back, Mum." The grip on his finger tightened immediately, startling Neville, for her frailty seemed momentarily gone.
"Don't let me fall, Frank," she said, her eyes searching his in a moment of clarity.
Neville's eyes burned, and his throat ached with grief. "I won't." He tried to sound courageous, but his voice failed him, breaking when he needed it most. "Don't worry."
He lowered his mother's head into the sink gently, as though it would shatter when it touched the cold porcelain, bracing her neck as one would a newborn infant. He ran his stubby fingers through the water to test the temperature; it was much like the way Hannah, his wife, squirted the baby bottle on her arm to make sure that the milk was not too hot to make sure that their son, little Augie, didn't burn his mouth. When it reached a comfortable temperature, he filled up the pitcher with lukewarm water and poured it over her head, making sure none of it ran into her eyes.
Alice let out an audible sigh of relief, and her vice grip faded. The Healers had assured Neville that the times when he came to wash his mother's hair were the most happy she ever was, even if she didn't show it.
He washed her hair in silence for a while, massaging her scalp gently to get all the shampoo in her hair. The soap was lavender-scented, for that was Alice's favorite smell. While he was rinsing the soap out of his mother's dark hair, she suddenly jerked forward, jumping from the chair and screaming, "My baby!" Streams of water ran down her hair and down her clothes, soaking her shirt completely.
"Mum!" Shocked, Neville leapt forward to keep her from falling and harming herself, catching her around the waist and pulling her to him. Her fists pounded against him, and she screeched louder, thrashing with a strength he didn't know Alice possessed. "My baby, my baby! They stole my baby!" One of her hands smacked Neville in the nose, and pain surged through his face, bu he held fast. He could feel warmth cascading from his nose and down his own shirt, but he ignored it, just like he ignored the vibrant white pain buzzing through his entire face. He had to worry about his mum, not his face.
"Mum, stop—" He pinned her arms at her sides, grunting from the effort, but she still twisted her body back and forth, putting all of her energy into getting to the "baby."
She screamed again, so loudly that Neville knew the Healers would come running. "My baby, my baby, they stole my—"
"You don't have a baby!" He'd managed to trap her against him, and now she was sobbing hysterically into his shoulder and embracing him, her long, wet hair draped across his arm. "There's no baby, Mum, only me." As she stopped fighting him and began to cry, mumbling incoherently, he held her closer; she held onto her son like a lifeline. "Only me, Mum, only me." This was the first moment in his entire life when Alice had willingly hugged Neville.
When two Healers burst into the bathroom only moments later, they found Neville cradling his mother against him, humming a wizard lullaby. Blood was smeared across his face, dripping from his nose. He brushed through her wet hair with his fingers, rocking her slowly. She mumbled more into his bloody shirt, gripping his shirt in one shaky fist. The Healers tried to pry her from him, but she clung harder, wailing as they pulled at her arms.
They poured another potion into her mouth, sedating her immediately. As she went limp releasing, something deep inside Neville's chest sank. Although he cherished his Nan, it had always been a terrible weight knowing that his parents had a mental barrier preventing them from ever fully loving him… It was devastating. And the one hug that Alice had just given him was the most love he'd felt from her. And after his dad… It was exactly what he needed.
He washed his blood-splattered shirt in his mum's hospital sink. The pink water swirled down the drain, and Neville touched his nose gingerly. It was a painful reminder of his mother's absence.
Two days later, when he came to wash Alice's hair again, she was as absent as ever, mumbling about people who didn't exist and colorful potions.
As he scrubbed the soap into her hair, she muttered distantly and then fell asleep. To her, Neville was just another Healer.
Neville wanted his mum back.
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