Summary: "Why?" Bellatrix laughed. "Because, Neville, I'm your mother."
One-shot
Growing up, Neville was always reminded of the fact that he was easily scared. Kids at Hogwarts were not so subtle, and most of the Slytherins relished it, snickering behind his back. It wasn't everyday a scaredy-cat like Longbottom was sorted into Gryffindor, the house most noted for bravery.
But things always change. The teasing grew less frequent, others grew more understanding, and Neville had risen above his peers to start his seventh and final year at school. And so far it was nothing at all like he imagined.
Not that he had expected anything glorious or spectacular in his honor. He was, after all, in the same class as Harry Potter. But April was already ending, and the school had become absolutely hellish. Neville had immediately recognized the Carrows as Death Eaters, and as everyone knew, he was never overly fond of Professor Snape. He made it a point of getting detention almost every day just to defy the cruel system, and others were even following his example.
But it wasn't easy. Most of Neville's friends were gone, Ginny and Luna in hiding, and Harry, Ron and Hermione off doing God knows what. He lived in constant dread of more Death Eaters arriving at school. What they would do once they came, Neville couldn't begin to fathom. All he knew for certain was that the dormitory he now shared with Seamus alone seemed colder and lonelier than ever. Little did Neville know how isolated he really was.
Neville spent the first precious minutes of the new month in detention. He wasn't surprised the Carrows kept him extra late that night. It was a Saturday, so there were no classes the next day, which meant more time for torture. By the time he was back in the Gryffindor common room, the fire had died out and none of the students were awake. As silently as possible, Neville got ready for bed, not even bothering to change out of his uniform. The sooner he fell asleep, the better.
Unfortunately for him, Neville remained restless for quite some time. The moon was shining right outside his window, the light casting a surreal glow on its surroundings. He didn't even think about closing the curtains around his bed. If an attack or abduction were to happen in the night, he didn't want to bother with something as stupid as a drapery.
As stupid as a drapery. That reminded him of something. A distant thought, probably a death of some sort…
And with that morbid thought in his head, Neville drifted off.
Rolling over in his sleep, Neville got the feeling he was being watched. His fears were confirmed when his leg brushed up against something, someone, apparently sitting at the foot of his bed.
Neville blinked, trying to clear his vision and aid his sleep-impaired mind. He wasn't sure how long he had been asleep, but it couldn't have been long. It was still dark out as he started coming to.
"Seamus?" His own voice sounded groggy, an echo from a distant and foreign phantom.
The answering voice woke Neville up faster than the sound of nails on a chalkboard.
"Get up." The shadowed figure thrust something at him, a package, which caught him in the chest.
The Death Eaters had finally come. And… they had packed for him?
"I don't know anything," Neville protested, sitting up to face his enemy.
"About what?" the gruff female voice inquired. She leaned closer to him. A splash of moonlight lifted few of the shadows about her face. Neville drew back.
"About Harry." Now it was his turn to be confused. "Why… why else would you come?"
"Why?" Bellatrix Lestrange laughed, her vile face relaxing into a grin. "Because, Neville, I'm your mother."
"My what?"
Maybe he'd heard wrong. It was too early; his thoughts were still trapped in a mental fog. His heart thudded fiercely against his ribcage.
"Yes," Bellatrix replied, her right hand slowly snaking closer towards him. "You didn't think we'd let our only son rot at Hogwarts when there's a war to be fought, did you?" The hand Neville had been watching suddenly shot forward and ruffled his hair. It was a sick attempt at affection, which caused him to cry out in shock. Bellatrix laughed wickedly.
"Wait." His thoughts were collecting more rapidly now. "'We?'"
Another dark figured stepped out from behind Bellatrix. Neville shuddered as Rodolphus Lestrange strode toward him silently, stopping not very far from his wife. The sinister pair loomed over him.
Neville gulped. "You can't be my parents," he retorted firmly.
"Says who?" Bellatrix replied craftily, looking him over haughtily.
"You're a pureblood aren't you?" Rodolphus asked disdainfully.
"Yes, but- " Neville protested.
"That's near proof enough."
"That's no proof at all!" Neville cried. They ignored him.
"What's your Patronus?" This came from Rodolphus again.
Neville furrowed his brow. "A dove." The dark pair exchanged a horrified glance. This did not make them happy at all. Neville took advantage of their stunned silence.
"I'm in Gryffindor!" Neville's exasperated shout rang out across the empty room. Empty? "And what did you do with Seamus?" he added.
Bellatrix folded both his hands in hers, her skin so cold it burned, and looked him dead in the eyes.
"He's in a better place," she answered softly, an evil smile playing on her lips. Neville thought he was going to be physically sick.
"The Sorting Hat made a mistake," Rodolphus boomed in answer to his Gryffindor question. "It's as simple as that."
"Actually, I'm afraid it isn't," another voice added, a new voice again. Neville felt the added weight of another person on his bed, seated directly to his left. He looked up into a familiar pair of half-moon spectacles.
"Dumbledore!" he exclaimed. "Wait… aren't you supposed to be dead?"
The aged wizard ignored Neville, his gaze fixed on the Lestranges.
"The Sorting Hat never lies," Dumbledore announced gravely. "So either your 'son' is suffering a fate not unlike that of your cousin, Sirius" – Bellatrix cringed at this – "or he is simply not who you say he is. And I think I know which story I believe." He finished boldly and folded his hands in his lap.
Neville let out a sigh of relief as Bellatrix and Rodolphus shared a dark, blank look. "You're lying," he said. "I really am Frank and Alice's son, and I was a fool to believe you for even a second!"
Bellatrix scowled at both Dumbledore and Neville. "Fine, we're not your parents. But we should be! It isn't fair!" She folded her arms and pouted like a child.
"'Should be?' Ha!" Neville laughed at her contemptuously. "What right do you have? Why? Why?" His voice was jagged, teeming with bitter sentiments. Why would Voldemort's right-hand Death Eater attempt to play Mother to the son of two of her victims?
"Give it a rest, Bellatrix, it's not working!" Rodolphus bellowed. But she disregarded her husband and turned to face Neville once again.
"I almost took you," Bellatrix whispered, her voice wavering. Her face immediately hardened, as if to combat the weakness she heard in her own words. She started again, her voice flaring with unleashed anger. "I should have taken you. When I had the chance."
"When you helped torture my parents," Neville whispered, flooded with numb, dying venom. He felt like he was made of stone, an awakening statue of sort. Bellatrix nodded and continued.
"After Frank and Alice were… 'gone,' I saw that you were all alone. Unprotected." She looked him in the eyes with a smile again, but somehow it was different. This smile reached her eyes and seemed almost vulnerable. "I always wanted a son, you know."
A pang of pity pulled at Neville's subconscious, but it was quickly overpowered by a fierce wave of fury. He couldn't tell if Dumbledore was still beside him or not.
"But I said no." Rodolphus's voice cut the silence like a knife. "You were still possibly the boy from the prophecy then, the one who would contribute to our leader's downfall. Besides, you would have found out eventually, and you'd never really be like us." His tone was condescending, yet transfixing. Neville wondered what it was like to be paralyzed by a snake or basilisk. Possibly something like this, maybe less overwhelming.
Rodolphus surprised him by letting a sigh escape, and the feeble glow of the moon through the dormitory windows revealed his weary expression. "And now Voldemort says he needs fighters. And he left nothing to be misinterpreted of his preferences." He started listing the qualifications, all the while moving slowly towards the head of the bed.
"Pureblood. Of age. Brave, strong, sketchy background. Bella figured since your parents were incapacitated, we could step in with our own version of your history, which you figured out, of course. Although, I have to say," he added, smugness creeping on the edge of his tone, "any son of mine who was Sorted into Gryffindor would be immediately disowned."
"How very honest, and narrow-minded, of you both," Dumbledore praised mockingly. Neville was stone silent, and figured her probably would be for quite some time now.
For the first time since his arrival, Neville noticed something on Dumbledore's shoulder. Up until now it had been still, but now it was shifting around, its beady eyes glinting in the darkness. He thought he heard the slight rustle of feathers.
Dumbledore appraised Bellatrix and her husband again and sighed. "You may go now," he said finally with a wave of his hand. From his tone Neville could tell he was almost bored, but there was another emotion there as well, underneath it all… frustration? Anger?
Neville looked, for the most fleeting of moments, at his old headmaster, and the back to the foot of his bed where the Lestranges had been, but nothing remained of them at all. His tongue tied for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, he turned back to Dumbledore again. His surprise must have shown on his face, because Dumbledore's grim expression finally broke, and he chuckled.
"I'm afraid I can't stay longer or be of any more assistance to you tonight, Mr. Longbottom. You'll have figure out the morale of this lesson your own. But, just in case you lose your way…"
At this Dumbledore produced a small, clear orb from the sleeve of his dark blue robes and dropped it into Neville's lap.
"Something to remember me by," he added, with a wink. And then Dumbledore was gone, soaring through the window and into the night with Fawkes, his phoenix.
Neville looked back down at Dumbledore's present. Silvery smoke was now swirling within the ball urgently, trying to convey some unspoken message. Was it another prophecy? Slowly, Neville picked it up, resting it in his hand to gaze at.
And the smoke turned a violent shade of red.
Neville sighed. His Remembrall. Not needing it for quite some time now, he had forgotten all about it. He had been hoping Dumbledore would bring something more important to him than a silly old Remembrall. But what was it trying to tell him? He needed to remember something, something important.
His gaze lost focus, but Neville was still staring into the Remembrall when it happened. Among the smoke, an object appeared. Neville was sure his mind was playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn he had seen a long, red sword in the ball before it vanished from sight behind another billowing cloud of crimson smoke.
Neville squeezed on the hard glass in concentration, trying to bring the image back.
Ribbitt.
He jolted back, still clutching the ball, but lowering it away from his face. That noise hadn't come from the Remembrall, had it? It sounded like…
"Trevor?" Neville thought the toad had scuttled off under his bed before his most recent detention, but come to think of it, he hadn't seen Trevor lately.
The Remembrall caught Neville's attention once again. This time, it was filling with a strange, olive-hued green smoke. That had certainly never happened before. And then it trembled. Neville wrapped his finger around it even tighter. Another quake, and then it was really moving, shaking and tossing like something was trying to escape from within…
And then, just when he thought it couldn't get any weirder, it sprouted legs. Four of them, and four webbed feet as well. And then it had eyes…
Neville gave the transformed Remembrall a wary look. In the dark it was hard to tell, but-
Ribbitt.
With a startled shout, Neville Longbottom awoke, clutching Trevor only inches away from his face. In his attempt to stand, he came to the realization that his sheets were twisted around his legs. However, by this time, his plan to stand was in action, and it was too late. With a crash, Neville rolled out of bed and hit the cold, dormitory floor.
"Hey!" Neville looked around the room (which was still spinning) and spied an annoyed Seamus Finnigan sitting up in his bed. "Some of us are still trying to sleep here, ya' know!"
"Sorry." Neville mumbled his apologies and Seamus turned his back to him.
Not bothering to move from his spot on the floor, Neville racked his brains mercilessly. His dream was already fleeing from him, and he needed to find something… his Remembrall… Trevor?
As if on cue, the insensible toad came hopping across the floor and stopped in front of his master's face. The two looked at each other for a moment before Trevor bounded up and onto Neville's head.
"Dang it!" Neville pounded the floor once with his fist in defeat. The dream had already vanished from memory. All was silent once again.