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Chapter Three

19 November 2005, early morning

I took my wand with me when I left my house this morning. It's the first time I've been with my wand outside of my flat for quite a long time. It feels odd to have it in my sleeve. I took the pains to dig out an old sweatshirt from the bottom of my wardrobe that had sleeve holsters. I hadn't worn it since probably sixth year. I was honestly very surprised it still fit. It is only a little snug.

But when I pulled the shirt out, I was overwhelmed with the scent – after seven years, the smell of what I had come to associate as 'the other side' or 'the Wizarding world' – still vaguely lingered in the fabric. I had laid it on my bed, running my hands over it. I don't know if I had imagined the scent or not.

The sun hasn't risen yet, and won't for probably another hour. The pre-dawn chill is intense and my eyes are watering a little from the wind. Since the other night, I have gotten maybe five hours of sleep, max. Seeing Neville seriously jarred my senses, and it was almost comical to go to work yesterday. Giles barely said a word to me – probably still mad because I wouldn't accept his lunch offer, and I was late to his precious staff meeting. That's two strikes against me and no real way to remedy it, save asking him out. But, I'm getting distracted from the real heart of the matter: It is too hard to focus on what has become my Ordinary Muggle Life when I had a real life wizard in my home.

I don't know why it was such a shock. I suppose his dogged persistence on finding me shouldn't have been a surprise. If anything I had learned about Neville over the years at Hogwarts is that he doesn't let things lie. I really can't fault him, because he saved our heads with it.

Once he left, I completely broke down. I could feel it after dinner. During the meal, it was complete silence. I think my salmon was a success, at any rate.

But after: He talked about his life now, teaching Herbology at Hogwarts, his friendship with Harry, Luna, and the Weasleys, and his more current research with Slughorn on a new use for Moondew. This piqued my interest.

Isn't that used in the Draught of Living Death? I had asked him.

"We had a nasty bit of business with it," Neville replied, sipping his wine. I took a sip of my drink, too, although it was creamy, sweet coffee to calm my nerves. "Some Death Eaters were using it as a means to escape Azkaban."

I didn't understand.

"Really, it was more a matter of appearing dead so they could be buried and then escape. Many wizards request they are buried with their wands – it's a Pureblood tradition. The only reason we figured it out was when Rodolphus Lestrange splinched himself."

I couldn't wrap my head around it.

How did they appear dead long enough to be buried? We brewed this very potion in class, but its actual Real Life uses were sort of skimmed over – it was just another potion to learn.

He said, if you take a large enough dose, you could appear dead for a long time. Long enough to actually die, if you weren't careful.

I recall shivering at that. What people would do to avoid paying for their transgressions. But then again, I had to remind myself that Azkaban was not a nice place. And I was understating it on purpose.

And have you found them all? I asked him, apprehensive for his answer. I was falling into the trap that was the other side – having Neville in my kitchen made it seem not so far away after all.

"Oh, it took a couple of years…but yes. After they figured out what happened, they had to dig up every grave of Death Eaters from the end of the war. Not everyone had escaped, only maybe four or five. I don't remember the exact number. The hardest one to catch was Yaxley. He had very extensive glamours and was hiding in Albania."

I remembered that Voldemort was rumored to be hiding in Albania, the first time he fell. But I really wanted to change that subject, so I asked him about the Moondew.

He launched into a very interesting explanation about its calming properties. He said the Draught of Living Death makes your body appear dead because it slows the heart rate so dramatically that your skin goes cold, and you need breathe only minimally. He said, it paralyzes you, and the Moondew calms you so you don't feel like you're in a living hell when you take it. So, they found a way to tweak the Calming Draught so it was more fast-acting, which was very effective. It was still in the experimental stage, and St. Mungo's caught wind of it and was now funding their research.

He had smiled bitterly. "This would have been more useful right after the war. I know I had night-terrors about that damned snake for months."

Neville stayed with me until the hour was very late. I don't know exactly how we transitioned from me disarming him to amiable talk after dinner. I remember after the talking had died down we moved to the living room: me sitting in my armchair, simply staring at him. He sat back down on the couch, fresh glass of wine, sipping it slowly. His other hand was resting on his knee, his face one of ease and comfort. I have found myself thinking back on this moment the most since he finally departed.

And then when he did depart – I grabbed my wand and cast the Muffliato charm. He talked so freely about the world I was struggling to remember. However, I felt that old sting of pride at still knowing small details, like what potion Moondew was used in. But it didn't matter. He left and we didn't make plans to meet again. And he didn't ask me to go back, and a small and rather bitter voice in my head wondered if it was because he was a man of his word or if he saw how much of a Muggle I really was now. He had said his goodbyes and hugged me very stiffly, as if unsure if it was the right thing to do. The scent of his shirt lingered long after – spice and dirt and magic. I think this is what really did me in. I was standing there rather limply, when he turned and I really thought he would ask to meet again. But no: he said, you really should put at least some defenses around the flat. Just in case.

And then he left. I cast the charm, I went into my bedroom, and I screamed for nearly twenty minutes, clawing my clothing off and throwing things and then using Reparo, I think I even threw my heel at my bedroom mirror. I stared at my naked body after fixing it, tears and mascara and snot running down my face, my hair completely pulled out of its braid, thinking rather brutally how incredibly ugly I was, how ugly I must appear to Neville, although it didn't matter anyway because I wasn't going back, and he didn't make plans to meet with me again anyway, so what did it even matter?

I almost wince at the memory. Probably one of my weakest moments in recent history, for sure, but also I regard the memory as a little bit hazy because at that point, I was weak from the excitement and probably the use of magic, too. I remember the first few months at Hogwarts and how draining it was to do magic at first, most of us were so tired at the end of the night we fell into our beds and were asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows. And then I think, it was probably one of the only times I truly felt I had much in common with everyone else.

It's still maybe thirty minutes to sunrise, and I can still feel my wand pressed against my forearm. More people are starting to walk about, and I can smell coffee and baking bread. I am almost tempted to have a sit-down and enjoy an ordinary Muggle newspaper with a nice cup, but then I have an almost devilish thought.

I walk down the street and find what I'm looking for: a deserted alley and, after checking as thoroughly as I can, devoid of security cameras. I am trying to figure out exactly how to remember to do what I'm trying to do. I imagine perfectly where I want to be.

Maybe the Muggles will think the crack is a gunshot.

The sudden scent of the ocean overwhelms my senses entirely. I open my eyes and I am staring at the ocean – the deep blue-green as subtle waves move forward and back, and I feel my eyes brim with tears. I sit in the cold, hard sand. The last time I was here, I was only a child. Maybe even before my parents had noticed there was something different about their daughter.

I sit there for a long while. Nobody else is on the shore today. It is off-season, anyway.

I finally stand. I walk forward a little bit and kick off my shoes, and take my socks off along with them. I roll up my jeans and walk further still until just the very tip of the largest wave can skim over my toes. I almost giggle at the sensation. After awhile, I grow tired of the game and abandon it all and walk straight in, the stinging cold of the ocean penetrating down to the bone.

This is something I cannot forget: the simplicity of the cold ocean stinging my skin. It's the simple things that don't ask you how talented or pretty or how old you are. It's things that don't require a wand or how many words per minute do you type? This is attainable no matter who you are, Muggleborn or Pureblood, Muggle or whatever. I shake my head and look at the sky. The sun is slowly rising over the horizon, its light peaking through the clouds, and the only thing I see from left to right is the shore, the ocean, and something unattainable, and then I know I have crossed from the realm of what is solid to what is abstract. It hurts to stand in the ocean, but it hurts no matter where I'm standing, really.

The wind blows my hair in all sorts of directions and I can't help but laugh. At least I am alive. At least I have some good memories, before everything went wrong. And at least Neville is safe in his world, free to study plants and be happy. I never did ask him if he was married, or a father. He didn't mention it, so I didn't think to ask.

And I have the memory of him sitting on my couch, and I pretend that it is a regularity with us. In my head, we are just normal Muggles who happened to meet one day at a café, and he comes over for dinner to listen to me talk about my mundane life where nothing exciting happens at all, and he tells me about his botany career.

I want to imagine a world where everything is as it seems and there is no other world. Where nobody died because of Dark Wizards and their followers. Where kids didn't have to grow up knowing their parents died fighting a war when they were only babies. And in this imagined world in my head, I could finally be at peace.

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