It was a still night towards the end of October. A light dusting of frost covered the floor and a cool wind was blowing over the houses of Davison Street. A stray dog was searching through the rubbish of a bin outside one of the houses. The distant sound of a blaring car alarm could be heard. There was nothing to suggest that anything strange or out of the ordinary was happening.
Suddenly two figures appeared out of nowhere on the corner of the street. Through the dim street lights a vague appearance of the men could be made out. They both wore what looked to be a sort of fancy dress costume; long cloaks that went to the floor and each of them held a stick in their hands. One of the men had long hair. The other wore glasses. They stood for a while, taking in their surroundings, before walking up the street towards a large house at the end.
"I don't believe this," the man with glasses said. "Not Frank and Alice. Not the baby."
"I know mate, but we've got to keep it together until we know for sure," said the other.
They reached the house and instantly noticed that the front door stood ajar. The two men exchanged glances before entering. The living room looked nothing like either of them could remember. Furniture was scattered about the room; a bookshelf had fallen to the floor: books strewn everywhere. A struggle had clearly taken place.
The pair began to rummage through the furniture, looking for any sign of life. The man with long hair picked up one of the books and gasped audibly, causing his companion to turn his head sharply towards the sound. Lying under the book was a human hand. Both of them began franticly throwing books off the pile until the whole top half of a body was visible. The man with glassed murmured something and waved his stick, causing the rest of the books to fly off the body. It was Frank.
They both knelt beside the body for a few minutes in stunned silence, neither of them wanting to believe what was lying in front of them. The man with glasses opened his mouth to speak when he was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying directly above their heads. They exchanged another glance before climbing cautiously up the stairs. The crying grew progressively louder the closer they got to the top.
They followed the sound into a room across the hallway. Inside they were hit with another bombshell. On the floor in front of the baby's cot lay another body. Alice. She had obviously been shielding her baby when she died. Voldemort was nowhere to be seen.
They stared at the body for a long time before they realised that the crying had stopped. They looked up to find Neville sitting in his cot completely unharmed apart from a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead. Both men looked at the baby in disbelief. How had he survived?
"We've got to move the bodies before the muggles start poking their noses around here," the man with long hair whispered, his voice shaking slightly.
"What about the baby. We can't leave him here," the man with glasses replied.
"Where should we take him?"
"I don't know... We could take him to Augusta. She could look after him while we sort things out."
"Yeah, I suppose. The sooner we get him out of this house the better. I'll call the Order. They can clear up here while we take the baby."
The man with long hair threw something in the nearby fireplace and spoke into it quickly while the other picked Neville up from his cot and hugged him tightly to his chest. When the long haired man finished speaking he nodded to his companion and they vanished into thin air leaving the two bodies behind.
The men appeared outside a rather old looking house in the middle of a field. A middle aged woman came running from the house towards the men. When she reached them they could see tears in her eyes.
"Oh my God, what happened? Why have you got Neville? Are Frank and Alice okay?" she yelled franticly. "They won't tell me anything." She gestured to two Auror's standing by her front door. They shuffled around uncomfortably.
"Augusta calm down. We have to talk to you. Can we go inside?" the man with long hair asked calmly.
"Yes, yes of course."
She led the way into her home. As they passed the Auror's the man with long hair gave a quick gesture, dismissing them from their post. The Auror's looked relieved and disappeared. They went into the dining room and stood around the table.
"Here, I'll take Neville. I've a cot upstairs he can sleep in. Make yourselves at home."
The man with glasses handed the baby over and she disappeared from the room, singing a lullaby quietly to Neville in a bid to get him to sleep.
"What are we going to tell her James? It will break her heart." The man with long hair said.
"I don't know Sirius. I just don't know." James said.
The men sank into chairs around the table. After a while Augusta reappeared, bringing with her a tray with three mugs of tea on. She put the tray on the table and sat down in a chair opposite the men, shaking slightly.
"What is this all about?" she asked quietly.
"It's Frank and Alice..." James said before letting out a sob, unable to carry on.
"We don't know how to tell you this but... they're dead. You-Know-Who showed up at their house tonight and killed them." Sirius continued and he to let out a sob.
Augusta nodded slowly; she had expected this for some time now. You-Know-Who had been keen to kill her son's family for a long time. Yet she was still unable to take the news in. It was like the whole world had stopped. He son, her only son, her dear little Frank, was dead. Her daughter-in-law, Alice whom she loved like she was her own daughter, was dead. It was a miracle Neville had survived, but how...?
"We don't know how or why but somehow Neville survived. We found him crying in his cot. You-Know-Who was long gone," James said. He had regained some of his composure.
"We should have got there sooner. If we had we might have been able to stop him." Sirius said.
"No. No one would have been able to stop You-Know-Who. You would have just gotten yourselves killed. There was nothing you could have done. At least I've still got Neville." Augusta said holding back tears. She had to be strong. At least until James and Sirius had left.
"Now you two get off home. Don't go back there. Not tonight. I'll look after Neville from now on. "
"Are you sure...?" James asked.
"We could always...?" Sirius said
"No, just go. I think I need to be alone for a while." She said.
The two men drank their tea quickly and left the house. Augusta stayed up late into the night looking at pictures of her late son and his wife. Upstairs in his cot Neville lay sleeping, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he was special, not knowing he would spend the rest of his life in the spotlight. Not knowing people all around the world were now calling him Neville Longbottom – the boy who lived.
