A.N. Here's the second songfic I've written. It's about Neville visiting his parents. Anyway, it has a really minor spoiler about Book 4, so if you really don't want to find out anything about book 4, you shouldn't read this. Please read this and REVIEWDisclaimer: I don't own Neville, the hospital, his parents, or his Gran. J.K. and her publishers do. I'm not making any money off of this, so don't sue me.

You were once my one companion
You were all that mattered
You were once a friend and father
When my world was shattered

Neville only had very vague memories of his parents. After all, they had left him when he was only one year old. But the few memories he did have were wonderful, full of love and warmth. They were happy. They were memories of his father, mostly, though also of his mother.

His father, acting like a father ought. Buying Neville his first toy broomstick. Rolling the ball back and forth between them. Laughing, playing. Like a father should. Like most children remember. Neville basked, for a few moments, in these memories

Suddenly those memories seem to fade into new, different ones. Of his grandmother's house. His Uncle Algie, trying to coax magic out of him, to no avail. His grandmother, reprimanding him for forgetting something. And the clean white walls that held those who used to be parents to him...but who were now just phantoms of his memories, blank strangers who reminded him of a time long past.

After Voldemort had tortured them, after they'd gone insane, the warm loving parents he remembered seemed to fade forever. His parents were no longer here. Sure, they were physically in the world, but psychologically they weren't. They were gone. Gone forever.

Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing you were somehow near
Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed
Somehow you would be here

Neville sat in the hard, stiff hospital chair in his parents' room and looked at his parents. They stared back, blankly, unknowing and unfeeling. They were strangers in another world. Not the parents he knew. Not the people he remembered from when he was a baby. They were people who couldn't know him, and people he couldn't know.

Neville wished that his parents could just be with him, not physically but emotionally. It was pointless, he knew, to just sit in this chair. His parents didn't know who he was. They didn't know that they were staring at their son. Why, the hospital personnel believed that they weren't even aware of his presence, and by the blank stare that they were giving him, Neville thought that their suspicions were correct.

Neville allowed himself to be caught up in dreams of them when they knew him. When they played ball with him, encouraged him, loved him. Sometimes he could lose himself in them, and almost forget that those people had changed. That the people who were staring at him no longer were the same. That now they didn't know him. Sometimes they'd seem to be back.

But inside, Neville knew it was pointless. Dreaming wouldn't bring them back. They'd still be strangers, still not know him. They'd still be lying on those beds, staring blankly at the wall.

Wishing I could hear your voice again
Knowing that I never would
Dreaming of you won't help me to do
All that you dreamed I could

As he stared back at the two people, Neville heard his Gran telling him to greet them. He knew there was no point. These people wouldn't hear him, wouldn't know him. They wouldn't even know he was saying hello.

"Hello mother. Hello father," he said, mechanically, in a monotone, staring at them. They stared back. They didn't hear him.

Staring into their blank eyes, he wished that they could just speak to him. Return his greeting, say something to him. Sometime, something, somehow. If they could just say hello back, Neville would be so happy.

But he knew they wouldn't. It was a wasted hope. A dream of something that could never be. He knew he'd never hear their voices speak, that he was wasting dreams. That it was a worthless hope, wasted, a hope that could never be.

Passing bells and sculpted angels
Cold and monumental
Seem for you the wrong companions
You were warm and gentle

Neville stared around their room. The little sculptures of angels and cherubs, bells tinkling. They were gifts from him, his Gran, and others. Gran made him get them something every year. Even though she knew that they wouldn't know that they had gifts. It was some sort of formality.

He stared at them, and they stared back, hard, not knowing anything, just like his parents. The white stone sculptures, the tinkling brass bells. Adorning the room, decorating. They brought back a memory...

He could remember in his distant past, a little sculpture in his living room. It was very pretty, of a beautiful mermaid. Neville remembered that as a small child he had simply adored this sculpture, thought had to be the most beautiful thing in the world. Well, one day -- it had to have been just before his parents left him, because he was nearly one year old -- he'd bumped into that statue and broke it. It had upset him very much, and he just cried like mad. But his mum and dad had taken him into their laps, and comforted him, warm and gentle...

Neville brought himself back to the present world, and stared at the little statues. Remembering his parents' warmth and love, they suddenly seemed out of place in their room, like they didn't belong. His parents had been so warm, and the marble of these statues were so cold...they needed love. Then he shook himself, and reminded himself that they didn't even know that these sculptures were here. That taking them away wouldn't change a thing.

Too many years fighting back tears
Why can't the past just die?
Wishing you were somehow here again
Knowing we must say goodbye

Gazing at his parents, Neville felt tears well up in his eyes. These cold beings, unknowing. They couldn't feel, they couldn't love him. And he couldn't love them. That was the hardest thing. He could only love his parents of the past, not his parents of the present. For how can you love someone who doesn't know you?

Why couldn't we just wipe away the past? he wondered to himself. Lose it, forget it, kill it. For he knew that it was the past that had caused the misery. Not the present -- it was fine. Not the future -- there was nothing to be afraid of there. But the past. The horrible past. The past we can't forget.

Neville wished they could somehow return to him. Come back from the empty depths they lived within, to greet him once again. To be the ones he remembered from many years ago. The parents he could remember with love. He wished the ones he loved could return again.

But he knew he couldn't, knew that they must say goodbye. That they were gone forever. The day they went forever, he'd kissed them. "Goodbye mummy. Goodbye daddy." Not knowing that his parents wouldn't ever return. And now he'd just have to say goodbye again. One more time. They couldn't return to him.

Try to forgive, teach me to live
Give me the strength to try
No more memories, no more silent tears
No more gazing across the wasted years

Neville wanted his parents so bad. They were the ones who could show him to live. They were the ones that could teach him everything. Their job was to be with him, but they couldn't. Not now. Not after what happened, so many years ago.

If they could just return to him, Neville knew he'd have so much more strength. So much more, for he'd have so much more to live for. Those two people, if they could come back, they'd bring so much to him.

They'd take away the tears he silently shed. He'd no longer look back through the wasted years. If they could just know him. And he could just know them. If they could just love, and live together. If he could only have his parents back with him, their love, their help. If they could just.

Neville knew they couldn't. Those wasted years couldn't be erased, nor could any past event. That was why they couldn't come back, because no one, not he, not anyone, could erase the day it happened. Neville wiped away a tear. He looked back, and knew it couldn't be.

Help me say goodbye
Help me say goodbye

"Neville," he heard his Gran say. "It's time to leave now. Come along. Say goodbye, now, Neville."

Neville stared down at his parents. Saying goodbye was always so difficult. Do you know what it's like to say goodbye to people who don't answer? Who don't know that you're leaving, or that you were every there? Neville knew. He knew it wasn't easy. He knew it was hard to do. Neville asked them silently to help him say goodbye, just by answering his farewell.

"Goodbye mother. Goodbye father," Neville said.

They stared back. They didn't know. They couldn't help him say goodbye.