His shoes squeaked loudly as he walked slowly across the busy waiting room. Neville walked straight past the reception desk, and the healer didn't try to stop him. They both knew he needed no directions.
Incurable
Neville stared at the sign hanging on the door, his hand resting on the frosted glass window, just as he did every time he stood there. Moans seeped out from under the door and Neville closed his eyes, gathering all the strength and courage he had.
I helped defeat Voldemort. Voldemort. I can do this. He clung to this thought as he slowly pushed open the door and stepped into the harsh, sterile, white ward.
A healer looked up as she heard his footsteps, but quickly returned to her patient when she realised who it was. Neville didn't even notice, his eyes fixed firmly on the two beds at the far end of the ward. Heart hammering, he quietly pulled up a chair and sat in the middle of the all too familiar beds.
"Hello mum. Hey dad".
Although he didn't expect a reply Neville paused imagining, as he always did, his parents' voices responding. He took their hands and, as his mother turned her head to look at him, he battled to keep the tears from falling.
"I did something great today, mum", he whispered in a voice too low for anyone but the three of them to hear. "I helped Harry Potter defeat Voldemort. We won. We're free. We're safe".
Neville paused. He hadn't planned anything more to say – to be honest he hadn't thought either of his parents would listen, let alone understand – but as his beloved mum stared absorbedly at him, he became desperate to prolong this rare connection between them. For the next three hours, Neville told his parents everything. His mother mumbled nonsense under her breath as Neville blurted out his role in reviving the DA, his resistance to the Death Eaters at Hogwarts, his slaying of Nagini and so destruction of a vital horcrux and his part in the fight. When he had finished, he breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that he had been able to tell the people he loved the most, the people who had made him who he was, what he did. What he had done for them.
Neville bit his lip as his mum pressed a chewing gum wrapper into his palm.
It doesn't matter that it's useless, he thought to himself as he struggled to smile at her. Mum thinks it matters. Mum wants me to have it. She's giving me something meaningful.
"Thanks mum", he said aloud as he got up and started to walk away. "I love you. And thanks".
"Proud!" The shout echoed around the otherwise quiet ward, and the healer looked up in alarm. Neville turned around, confused. His breath hitched as his mum pointed at him, smiled, and repeated her first and only word for almost 17 years.
"Proud".
This time, Neville couldn't stop his tears from falling as Alice Longbottom turned away to stare out of the window and whispered absently to herself, "proud".