Disclaimer: I am not JKR or Dylan Thomas. I own nothing.
Though they go mad they shall be sane
Pain.
Every nerve of her body was on fire.
The blood in her veins turned to acid.
Every atom burst into flame.
She bit her tongue to keep herself from screaming.
She didn't feel it begin to bleed.
"Crucio"
Pain.
But she would never surrender.
Her vision filled with white light so brilliant it was black.
And the pain….
But Neville was safe. Frank was lying comatose on the kitchen floor. But her baby was safe. The longer until she broke, the less time until the Order arrived. The less time that they could use to find her baby.
She would not break soon.
She had to hold out.
A scream rang distantly in her ears.
Maniacal laughter.
Melia's voice (but she's no longer seven, is she?) tinkled in her ears.
Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy, ashes, ashes, we all fall down…
Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again
She was falling.
Falling through a sea of bright blackness.
Neville.
Her baby's face floated in front of her, but not there.
Determination filled her.
She would break the surface of this ether.
She had to.
For Neville.
For Frank.
Alice Longbottom saw.
She saw white walls.
Banal puce-colored chairs.
And they were beautiful to her.
She heard a page turn.
It was a man, calmly reading a Herbology text.
Frank?
No.
Could it?
It was him.
Her baby.
He was so old now.
"Neville?" she croaked.
The man looked up, dropping his book.
His eyes were widened with shock, and hope.
"Mum?"
Though lovers be lost love shall not
The healer fidgeted nervously under her intense glare.
"Madam Longbottom, I am afraid that we have already done everything we could for your husband. Your recovery was miraculous, and we do not have the ability to duplicate it. Frank Longbottom is as good as dead."
She held Frank's hand as rocked back and forth, eyes glassy and unseeing.
"I will always love you. No matter what. I still do."
And death shall have no dominion