We Were Once So Many

Neville ponders the cost of war.

It was many years later when he gathered the courage to empty out the trunk. He had stowed it in his old room at his Grandmother's house hoping to forget, but he didn't. It lurked like a boggart at the back of his mind, springing out sometimes when the guilt resurfaced. But now there wasn't the option of leaving it, because his Grandmother demanded he "Get some Gryffindor courage, and act like the man she thought he was", and that was that. He set aside one Saturday afternoon, when his shift finished down at the Auror office, and at 4pm he found himself taking the long walk down the drive to his former home. Apparation was of course an option, the wards started by the front steps, but time was needed to clear his mind. A brisk, sharp voice cut through his thoughts with a knife.

"Neville, I do not believe that you were brought up to dawdle. The tea is going cold."

"Sorry Gran, I needed some time to think."

"You've had plenty of time to do that."

"Yes Gran, sorry Gran." And he began a hurried trot towards the house.

DotDotDot

It was hard standing at the door to his former room. A child's handwriting carved into the door "Neville's Room", a reminder of an era lost in history. The handle was a lot lower than he remembered it, even though he had not gained any height since he was 17. Skin touching metal. Pulling metal out of torn flesh. Screams penetrated his ears. Looking around, but he was alone. It took all he had to turn the knob. The sight of an arm shredded by shrapnel. The heavy, wooden trunk sat on his bed bearing the initials NL. There were some signs of light fire damage, but it had remained intact. Fire. Burnt orange flames surrounding his friends, unable to find their way out. If he looked closer he could see the marks where the letters FL had once graced the surface of the trunk. The lock still had that definite click as you opened it. It was like going back in time to summers past when he would empty out his trunk after school was over. Only it was November.

School Robes sat atop the mess the trunk concealed. He had forgotten just how bright Gryffindor red really was. A lion on his hind quarters, the symbol of bravery. But it wasn't just Gryffindors who were brave. What law said that Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and even Slytherins couldn't be brave? Books slotted in wherever there was space.

He gulped when he saw "Mudbloods: A Threat to our Society", the hideous excuse for a muggle studies textbook. Trembling hands removed it. Flash of a wand, and the awful burning pain in his cheek, the desperate desire no to scream, to show weakness. He wanted to tear it to pieces with his bare hands, a primal desire to extract a modicum of revenge for the torture. He settled for burning it. There was a great deal of things he wished to burn.

There was old unstable potion vials he'd stashed for emergencies when he couldn't get medical attentions. Shaking hands, nerves going into spasm after a long session of the cruciatus. Hands shaking now, very real in the moment. Bottles of ink, reduced to a residue over the intervening years.

He dug his hand in further and it hit a book of some kind. Hauling out the volume he realised it was a photo album. The cover had some scrawling font with the words 'My Memories' as a title. Yeah, memories were right. He had tried to consign the images to the back of his mind, but now they were swarming forward like a flock of birds, all coming at once. Lavender, Parvati, Dean, Padma, Lisa, Terry, Michael, Ernie, Wayne, Morag, and so many others, I didn't save them. It was my fault. Settling himself down on his old bed, he opened the pages, not wanting to face what was beneath the cover, but knowing he must, because it would be an insult to their memory to consign them to the pages of a book that would never be opened. Smiling, happy faces graced the first side. The Gryffindors of his year as first years. A lump appeared in his throat. Dean. Blissful, unmarked, youthful faces, ignorant of the troubles they would face. How he wished he could return to the time when everything was simple, and the worst they had to worry about was the dreaded Hogwarts end-of-year exams. How had Harry stayed sane after all he had done? But he hadn't suffered, not like them, a nagging voice said at the back of his mind. Many never were sound-of-mind again after that year. He envied Harry. While they were being tortured, attacked and brutalised, Harry went on a nice little camping expedition with his best friends, only them to see him cry, with hunger and snatchers as their worst problems. NO! That wasn't fair. Harry did endure some terrible things; he couldn't say he never did more than his fair share. Then again, was it fair that 14 year olds had to carry some of that load? It was the fault of the wizarding world that choseto cower while Death Eaters ran rampant, leaving it in the hands of children to save them. The final battle of the war was on the grounds of a school. A school. If 18 was too young to die, then what about the fourth years who willingly laid down their lives to save the world that wouldn't save themselves?

He turned over the page. Himself, Seamus, Dean and Ron painting their faces for Harry's first Quidditch match. Carefree times. The next page was him down by the lake, smiling with the Hufflepuffs. He may have been hapless, but he always had friends. Page after page, his Hogwarts years immortalised in photo, to grin on for eternity. Then he hit a photo he would never forget being taken. It was the first full gathering of the DA. The day he became a leader. He would never have chosen it, but he was voted for. Row after row of solemn faces accepting the task in hand. Knowing that most of them would not see summer, because they had accepted the battle he orchestrated. To take out every last Death Eater they could in a fight to the death. He was the one responsible for their deaths. A voice, sounding very much like his Grandmother's resounded round his head: Don't be silly Neville; they agreed to it as well, they could have backed away. But he was the one who gave them the idea.

Pages and pages documented every injury they received. He didn't need to look at pictures to know the exact position of the scars that marked his face, or feel to know where a whip had torn a large bloody scar into his once youthful, podgy back. He cursed whoever came up with the idea to make notes in case they needed evidence. All he could see now was the pain he inflicted onto his colleagues, peers, and most importantly friends.

Following was reams of moving pictures, smiling happy faces of couples who had just 9 short months before their world was shredded. He stopped on a picture of Ernie and Susan when he proposed to her in April, saying they should have something to live for. Susan looked nothing like her excited, childish former persona. These days she looked little more than death warmed over, like someone had torn a hole in her heart. And they had. They took Ernie. And now she had nothing left to live for. Neville couldn't take it any longer. All he could see was Hannah. Hannah holding his dead body. The poor photo album never knew what hit it as it was slammed into a wall, and its contents reduced a grown Auror, who by rights should be little more than a boy, to tears.