There's a silence hanging over the courtyard that Neville doesn't think he'll ever be able to forget. It's the silence of past screams, cruel laughter and gushing wounds like the one soaking the side of his sweater and dripping to a puddle at his feet.
He sees Harry standing next to pile of rubble, then the pile moves and he realizes it's Hagrid, felled sometime during the battle. Neville doesn't think Hargrid's dead, he might be toeing the line between both worlds but he hasn't crossed over like so many before him.
His gran, Dobby, Fred, Lupin, Moody, Colin, Dumbledore…
An inconsolable wail rings in the courtyard.
Neville shifts on trembling legs to see the Parvati twins—no longer identical with the burn marks covering half of Padma's face and the raised, fresh scars running down Parvati's neck—carrying someone between them. Their legs give out as they trip on the head of one of Hogwart's stone protectors and the body between them tumbles to the ground in a jumble of long, curly hair flying out of tattered clothes and patches of brown skin. Lavender.
The cries continue as the bodies of their dead friends, family and brave strangers are dug out and laid out on their backs in neat rows. Neville stays until the latest hours of the night and when not even the light from his wand can help him see in the billowing darkness, he retires to the tower.
He isn't surprised when he finds a group of bodies huddled together on the common room floor. It's too dark to see who they are and Neville doesn't care who he sleeps next to as long as he's not alone.
He finds an empty spot and lies down.
He doesn't make it home until days after the battle. Madame Pomfrey had tended to his wounds as best she could and on the orders of her and the Saint Mungo's volunteers who'd arrived to treat the worse of the wounded (and carry away the dead) he was going home to change into clean clothes and rest.
But there's a silence in his house, too.
Neville studiously avoids the greenhouse and can't bring himself to so much as step on the stairs leading to the second floor.
He sleeps on the sofa and doesn't think about the room upstairs with an empty bed and a closet full of ridiculous hats.
I'm so sorry about your grandmother, Neville.
She was a great woman, that one. I didn't expect anything less to take her down.
I know she could be a bit hard sometimes, but it was only because she loved you so much, dear.
You were there with the last of them, I heard, just like your parents. You're a born fighter.
Your parents would be proud.
Your parents would be proud. Your parents would be proud. Yourparentswouldbeproud.
Neville glances down at his wand one morning. It looks different than the first time he got it over seven years ago. There's a hardness to it that hadn't been there before, that held no place in those first moments of wonder and magic.
He rolls it in his palm and thinks he might be able to feel the hearts of the people he killed beating against his skin.
But there's a silence in there, too.
He finds it hard to believe his parents would be proud of this.
Diagon Alley is not as he remembers it. There are people milling around, going about completing their chores and running into people they know (he tries not to think how less likely that is, now).
He hears the clomp of their feet on cobblestones, the murmur of their words as they recite lists to themselves and the crinkling of bags as they bump into strangers. There are children winding around the legs of adults but he doesn't hear any laughter or whining or crying.
(There's a silence everywhere he goes.)
He leaves without buying anything.
He reads the newspapers every day and finds charities, organizations and families who would benefit from an anonymous donation from a boy who lost everything and yet has too much.
He doesn't extend his contact to the outside world further than that.
People drop by to see how he's doing, from his grandmother's friends to his own from Hogwarts, but it's not until Harry comes by with a letter from the Ministry and a wailing infant in his arms with blue hair and green eyes that Neville hears some sound begin to pierce the silence.
He grasps the letter in his hands hard enough to crease the cream stationery.
That night, he steps into the greenhouse for the first time in a little under a year.
The memorial takes place a month later, just in time for Neville to apply the finishing touches.
It's held on the edge of the Black Lake, a sea of tranquility on one side and the broken remains of Hogwarts castle on the other, slowly and painstakingly being built back up brick by brick.
Neville doesn't think he could've picked a better place himself and from the looks of the people around him—some known to him, others not—they also agree.
A large stone, like a menhir, has been erected on the edge of the beach where the grass turns to sand. Etched on its surface are the names of every last person lost to the war. It takes a while for him to find his grandmother's but when he does, Neville lets out a choked laugh which rouses the people around him.
Augusta Penelope Longbottom.
A. P. L.
Apple, because I was the apple of my father's eye. It's not even properly spelled—it essentially makes no sense—but your great-grandfather was so proud of his stroke of genius...
There is a pile of gifts and personal effects at the foot of the monument. Neville has no problem finding his grandmother's hat (the most horrendous one he'd ever seen in his life which his gran somehow seemed to adore). He also saw a camera, a clock-hand, a pair of mismatched socks, a lighter, a plate with the imprint of a baby's hands pressed into the middle, and photographs. So many photographs.
Many people had something to say and by the time the last speaker walked off the podium only a sliver of the sun could be seen peeking over the horizon. Neville holds his breath and waits for night to fall.
There's a depression in the ground, a tremble of the earth which sets off panicked whispers, and then the vines sprout from the foot of the large stone. They wind around its edges, sprouting small flowers which let off a misty white glow and are joined back together at the top of the stone, producing a large, bell shaped flower with buttery petals and curled edges. The flower hangs over the top of the stone and shines a pulsing light on the words below.
It will only last for the one night, but every year on the same day, the anniversary of the battle, the plant will grow its vines and sprout its flowers and light up the names of the people they love.
Though many sounds follow the plant's sudden appearance, they inevitably wind down and disappear altogether until there's nothing but dozens of glowing names etched in stone.
It's a different silence this time.
He goes back to what he'd always wanted to do: study Herbology. Once that's done and he has his degree in hand he applies for a Teaching Assistant job at Hogwarts and it's barely a day later when he receives Headmistress McGonagall's positive response.
Five years later and he's promoted to Herbology Professor. It's been a long time since Professor Sprout has been able to get on her knees to check on her plants without struggle and she trusts no one else more than Neville to take over her post.
When he comes home that night it's to the smell of homemade stew and strings of music played by an old radio.
He finds Hannah in the kitchen and hugs her from behind, arms winding around her small, round belly as he presses a kiss to her shoulder. He listens to her intently as she describes her day and rejoices with her when she tells him of the promising results she received in her latest Healer's exam.
She nearly topples over the cooking pot in her rush to kiss the living daylights out of him when he tells her his own piece of news.
As Headmaster of Hogwarts, Neville doesn't often have the time to sit down and reflect on the passing years so when a situation calls for doing just that, it always comes as a shock to see what time has changed.
His twin girls have grown like weeds over the years and now that they're in their third year at Hogwarts they're beginning to find it less and less cool to have their dad constantly aware of everything they're doing. Hannah says it's only natural for them to want to start their own lives but he's caught her more than once staring longingly at the framed pictures of them as toddlers, hanging off their parents' arms and legs with grass stains on their knees.
Their house is full of memories like that one, it's what his girls have grown up with, what they've come to know. But they also know other things.
They know of the war their parents had to fight in, know of their pain and the scars they still carry in the nightmares that still wake them up in the middle of the night and the more physical ones marring their mum's hands and slashed across their dad's side.
They know that lives were lost (so many of them) and they dutifully attend the yearly memorial service held at the edge of their school grounds.
They have friends who lost family members and some who didn't even get to know their parents (just like their dad). Those are the ones that, when summer vacation comes about, are guided off the train by a red-headed girl and her two raven-haired brothers and taken to their father's Small Steps Orphanage: A Home for Kindred Souls.
There is a light back in the world. It has a music which fills the empty spaces left behind by those they lost and is joined by a temid, sweet melody resplendent with hope and new beginnings and though the silence isn't completely gone (merely waiting in a secluded corner for the darkness to fall, the memories to creep in and the nightmares to take hold) it's held back by his wife's exasperated eye roll, his daughters' pointless fights, his students' mischievous pranks, the photos of his gran in her hideous hats…
The silence isn't gone. It's still there, waiting.
And when his time comes decades later, like an old friend, it folds him in its arms and embraces him.