Disclaimer: I neither own the rights to Harry Potter nor any of its associated media, derivatives or products. I do not profit from this work.
A/N: Hello everyone! (Dodges flying tomatoes) Okay okay I'm sorry, I know I haven't updated in forever! And I'm not technically updating now because... (drum roll) this isn't my story at all!
This is wonderful masterpiece here was actually created by my very good friend, Artie, who asked me to post it for all of your delight as he does not himself have an account. We sincerely hope you enjoy this wonderful piece, and please leave a review telling Artie your thoughts!
Enough of my rambling; on with the story!
-Part One: The Question-
Neville stared into his porridge glumly. The week had been so good until today; first his Hogwarts acceptance letter had come, to the relief of his grandparents in particular—not to say that he hadn't been excited as well, but his grandparents, long worried he might be a squib, had been overjoyed to a degree that was embarrassing to the normally quiet and introverted boy. But even with his somewhat withdrawn nature, even Neville had been enjoying the attention and praise. He was going to get to go to Hogwarts, that alone had been something to keep his spirits flying high all week. What was more, he'd been told that he was going to be going to Diagon Alley, that he'd finally be able to get his school supplies, his books and more than even that, his wand! He'd been over the moon about all of it. That was until of course his parents had told him that they'd be visiting Aunt Bella at St. Mungo's today before they went shopping.
Neville stirred the gray tan paste, the strawberries sinking into the quagmire. Normally he would have savored those, snapping them up one by one as he progressed with his breakfast, but today he simply watched them drown along with his good mood. Alice Longbottom peered over at her eleven-year-old son, looking somewhat worried at his surprisingly downcast mood. "Something wrong sweetie? I thought you liked porridge?" she said in a concerned tone as she moved over to the table, her white streaked brown hair put up in a bun this morning.
Neville shook his head "I'm ok mum." He knew from the look on her face that mum knew he was lying, but that she was going to wait until he told her why; she might prod him a bit if he took too long, but she'd wait.
"Why do we have to go see Aunt Bella?" he finally said, still holding the spoon in his hand despite having long since given up on the porridge.
"Well to show her your acceptance letter of course, she'll be thrilled to hear it and she'll want to congratulate you," Alice said, answering the immediate question, but not the actual concern.
"No I mean, but why do we have to go see her?" Neville said, clipping off the "at all" from the end of the sentence. There was a pause from his mother as Alice took a moment to compose a more in-depth answer.
"Because it would mean a lot to her if she heard the news, and it would mean even more to her if she heard it from you directly," his mother said, her words carefully chosen as she tiptoed up to the line of a topic that had long been danced around in the Longbottom household. All the same, though, her tone was firm; it was clear that the visit wasn't up for debate.
Neville returned to pouring his gloom into the porridge, even taking a bite if only for appearances. Aunt Bella…. Neville though glumly, Aunt Bella. It wasn't that Neville hated Aunt Bella, it was more that he found her terrifying. The terror was all the worse and mixed with guilt because she seemed to have a bottomless affection for her "nephew." The issue was that Aunt Bella's means of showing affection were, in a word, scary. Neville remembered when she'd insisted on reading him a story. She'd read him "Little Red Hood." He still had nightmares. And she always wanted to hug him, to kiss him, to pinch his cheeks and coo about what a big boy he was becoming. He had heard other kids his age complaining about similar things, moaning about "embarrassing relatives." But Neville was pretty sure they'd never been screamed at by their aunt for "not smiling enough" or then had to watch their aunt be restrained and sedated by an entire team of healers. She had apologized the next time, sure, but to Neville's mind he wasn't sure why there had been a next time at all.
And then there was the way she moved. Neville had once seen a fox in the garden hunting after some rabbits. He'd watched the fox stalk the birds and grinned that horrible predatory grin at the baby bunnies it had wanted to have for dinner. Neville had cheered when his father had rushed in and scared the fox off. Aunt Bella smiled the same way and she moved the same way, and yet Neville's dad insisted that he be nice to her and call her "Auntie" all the same.
And that was the other thing, the big one. When Neville had last been at his Gran's place he had found an old book of genealogy. Neville had always been a boy to devour any book he could get his hands on anyway, and in this case, it had revealed a big secret to him. Aunt Bella wasn't actually his aunt. He'd looked and looked, but among the various branches and limbs of his family tree, he hadn't seen a single mention of Aunt Bella anywhere near his own family. He had found her eventually on a different family tree though, the Blacks. He'd only recognized one other name there, Sirius Black, and Neville knew that he was a dangerous murderer who was locked up in Azkaban.
The discovery had chilled Neville to the bone, it felt like he'd stumbled onto some great conspiracy. Aunt Bellatrix wasn't his aunt, so why did his parents always insist he call her so? Why did they have to visit her every couple of months? All of these thoughts and more were boiling in his head until he finally spoke again.
"I just…maybe you can go see her and show her my letter." Neville brightened suddenly "And then Dad and I can go get my school supplies! It'll make the trip quicker right?" he added, feeling quite proud of how he'd make this all far more efficient. Alice Longbottom sighed.
"Your father had to stay late at work today sweetie, he won't have time, and it would make her very happy to hear it from you in particular." Her face seemed set, as though she'd finally decided something. Neville's face fell, he had been sure that would have worked.
"But we already saw her at Christmas mum…" Neville mumbled.
"Yes and you remember how happy she was when you gave her our present right?" Alice said as she forced cheer into her voice, trying to point out the positives, offering up the scripture of good manners.
"The healers say it was all she would talk about, how her thoughtful nephew had given her such a nice cardigan." Neville felt his face twisting into a worried look. He also remembered how she'd hugged him until it had hurt and how his mother and a healer on hand had had to gently but firmly pry her grip off of him.
"But she's not even my Aunt!" Neville heard someone say. He looked at his mom and her sudden wide eyed expression. Neville realized it had been him.
"Well…she's not…" he said, his tone retreating to a more apologetic ground. For a moment he could have sworn his mother was angry but if she had, or even if it had just been his imagination she didn't look angry now, she mostly just seemed sad. But Neville could tell it wasn't at him, it was at something else, something…bigger.
"Neville-" she started before pausing and sighing before settling down into the chair across from him.
"No…she's not your aunt." She said, Neville opened his mouth but Alice Longbottom held up a hand to stop him. He complied, giving his mother time to gather her words. He had so many questions, the conspiracy had finally been broached, he would finally have answers.
"Neville, do you remember when we moved into this house? Do you remember at all? You were about three years old?" Neville furrowed his brow, this hadn't been where he'd expected things to go. He nodded slowly.
"I…yes?" he said giving his mother curious look.
"Well, do you remember where you lived before that?"
"I lived with Gran and Granddad," he said simply, but then for the first time the strangeness of this statement his him: why had he lived with his grandparents until he was three? He knew the reason that his Gran had always given him, that his parents were in the hospital sick but that they'd be better soon and be there to see him. Much of Neville's life had been dominated by visits to St. Mungo's. But those visits had always been happy, seeing mum and dad as they seemed to get better each time he saw them. And his Gran had been telling the truth, one day his mum and dad had gotten better and they'd left hospital. They'd moved to this house not long after.
…But why had they been in hospital? And, now that Neville thought about it, the visits to Aunt Bella had started not long after. He remembered that Gran hadn't been too happy about them either.
Neville looked up at his mum and he saw her giving him a bit of a sad smile, she knew her son had started asking the right questions, she knew the day had finally come.
"Mum…why were you and Dad in hospital?" And Neville knew that for the first time in his life he wouldn't be told that it was because they had been "sick".
"Your father and I–" She stopped, seeming to once again be gathering her mental notes. She started at least one more time before finally settling on a direction for things.
"When you were a baby, things weren't…well they weren't very good," she started weakly but plowed on all the same. "You-Know-Who had only just been killed and things were getting better, but it was still very dangerous." Neville shivered, he'd been told about You-Know-Who by his Uncle Algie, his Gran had been very angry at uncle Algie for that, and Neville had had nightmares for a while after that until his father had explained things more carefully to him.
"But when You-Know-Who died things got better right? The war ended," Neville said almost a bit plaintively to which his mother gave him another sad smile.
"Well…yes, but as I said, his followers were still around, and some of them were…well they were just as bad as him." Neville shuddered again, the idea of other wizards just as bad as You-Know-Who was a frightening thought.
"And some of them wanted to find him, your father and I had…well we had helped fight You-Know-Who." Neville felt a flame of family pride inside him, he had heard this part a few times from his grandparents, but strangely, never from his parents themselves.
"So some of them decided–" Neville felt a sudden pit beginning to open in his stomach as he began to follow where this road lead. "–That your father and I might know where to find…him." Neville could see the pit below.
"You were just a baby, it was late at night and they broke in." There was an expression of terrible worry on his mother's face, he could see her hands shaking a little as she spoke, as she forced herself to speak.
"Your father…there were too many of them and they ambushed us, he tried to fight…I tried to hide you but they found us and they–" He heard his mother's voice croak as she forced herself to stop and take several deep breaths. Neville instinctively reached out a hand, placing his pudgy hand into his mother's, earning a weak but grateful smile. The smile didn't last, though, and the boy felt his heart sink: there was more.
"They did…terrible things to us…I-I honestly don't remember much of it." She let out a nervous laugh before gulping it down.
"But then…then they found you. I remember one of them saying so. I remember because they…stopped. Stopped as they pulled you out." Neville felt his eyes widening. He felt the ice forming in his heart, this was worse than any scary story he'd ever heard, even though he knew it ended okay…at least he hoped it did.
"I couldn't do anything, I was so weak but then…" Mum looked suddenly ashamed. Ashamed with herself.
"She changed sides." She said with a strange bewildered tone. Neville looked up
"Who did?"
"Bellatrix…she stopped, she just suddenly turned and…made her husband drop you, then she was dueling with them. I couldn't move and she just kept dueling them. But then they started winning, they started hurting her, punishing her. She kept screaming, they wouldn't stop, I wanted them to stop, to leave you alone, to leave us alone…to leave her alone." Neville's mum wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, Neville tightened his grip on her warm hand, he felt her return the grip.
"I don't…I don't remember how we did it, but we did, and when I woke up, you were living with your Grandmother and I was in St. Mungo's." Neville started, he knew there were holes in the story, but he wasn't sure he wanted to see them filled, he wasn't sure his mother could.
It took her a moment to calm herself, but she did and Neville saw with a sudden pang of guilt that she was going to continue; he felt terrible, he could see the pain it was causing her to continue.
"Mummy I–" But she waved a hand again, she looked determined now. She had to finish, she had to see it through.
"It took me a long time until I could…think clearly again." She smiled "Seeing you helped a lot, I would sometimes forget…everything, but then I'd see you and your smiling face, see your father and the important things would come back." She pulled Neville closer, he pulled his arms around his mum; he felt terrible, making her tell this story, felt even worse that it had come from such a selfish place, but a small part of him knew more was coming.
"And then one day I got to go home. I got to have the life I'd dreamed about while in the hospital bed, I got to live with my son again, to live with my husband again, in our own house." She squeezed Neville a bit tighter, her face taking on a genuinely joyful look for the first time in this story. But it darkened.
"I got to go home…but Bellatrix…your Aunt Bella couldn't. The Death Eaters–" Neville had never heard the term, but he could figure it out easily enough, "–had hurt her too much, they'd driven her insane, and the healers said she hadn't been very healthy to begin with." Alice Longbottom's face took on a pained look, her gaze shifting to Neville to somewhere far away.
"She finally did something good in her life and that's how they paid her for it." She seemed to return to Earth, but her gaze stayed off of Neville
"The healers said that we had been lucky, with what they had been doing, we might have ended up like her, or maybe even worse, that we might have never been able to even recognize you." She returned her gaze to her son, pulling him tighter into the hug, reassuring him that that would never happen.
"And she was all alone. No one wanted her, her old allies would have wanted her dead and people on our side wanted nothing to do with her after all she'd done…but they couldn't just throw her in Azkaban, not after what she'd done in the end, and with the state of her mind, she wouldn't have survived. In the end Dumbledore said that it would be best to just give her a quiet room at St. Mungo's where she couldn't hurt herself or others; he said it would be for the greater good. People grumbled about it, but in the end they let her have it…and that's where she had stayed. Alone."
There was another pause before she spoke again.
"So I reached out…it took a bit of work, but I got to meet her…and after some work I was able to do it…and after even more work they let you meet her."
Neville finally spoke up again. "But why do I have to meet her?" For once it wasn't a whine, but a genuine question, a curiosity of where he specifically fit into all this.
"Because she loves you." Neville stared and in response to that his mum shifted tact.
"Well…she does, in her own way, she changed sides because of you…she never did fully explain it, but all she would ever say when we met was how much she wanted to see you." Alice gave an apologetic look.
"Part of why we started calling her Aunt Bella was because for a while she was convinced that you were…well. that you were her son." Neville looked horrified at that prospect to which his mother quickly added:
"She stopped once she got used to the idea of being your aunt, and she would always talk about how happy she was to see you, how eager she was to see you again, it made her happier, it made her healthier, it gave her something to hold onto."
Alice looked down at Neville. For his part, Neville was deep in thought. "But…you said she had done really awful things…" he said, feeling his confusion deepening.
"Yes…but when the time came she made a new choice." She shook her head when Neville started to speak again. "I know…I know, she did a lot wrong, she committed many sins." Alice gave him a look that made it clear that this was something to be taken to heart "But in the end, when the moment came she made the right choice. If she hadn't, you might not have been able to grow up knowing us. For all her sins, she tried to change…And now she has suffered, suffered a lot. Who knows, she might have continued to make more choices like that if she had had the chance." Alice looked off wistfully again.
"That's the real tragedy I think…just when she had begun to change…they took the choice away from her."
Neville was silent for a long time, he clung to his mother and he felt the warm embrace of her arms wrapped around him. For the first time in his life he seriously considered what that meant, to have his mother embracing him, that she could, that she knew how to. What it meant to know that his mother and father, his grandparents, all of his family there for him. And for the first time in his life he considered what it would be to be truly alone. He pulled in closer to his mother. And for what felt like ages they held close to each other.
When they finally let go Neville didn't say anything, he didn't speak much at all as they prepared for the trip to the hospital and later to Diagon Alley.