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I'm on a horse.

Chapter 10- A Revelation and a Decision to Make

"Creep," muttered Neville under his breath as he unlocked the door to his room and then locked it again behind him, quickly changing into a clean set of light robes and performing the few quick cleaning charms he had learned to use after working hours steeped in dirt in his grandmother's garden and then brushing his teeth, before unlocking the door, and then locking it again behind him and tucking the key, hung on a string, back into his robes. He had made it the previous night after dinner with a string cut from one of his more worn-out pair of (clean) socks, still feeling guilty for letting Sirius into the dorms in his third year, though he had turned out to be a good guy.

He then headed downstairs quickly, checking his watch as he walked into the Potions classroom: he was right on time.

"How good to finally see you," sneered Snape, looming over his desk as always.

"I'm on time," said Neville, mustering up the courage to speak in his own defense for once.

"If you were dedicated to learning the most you can in our time together, you would have been early," snapped Snape, and then stopped, taking a deep breath. "Take a seat."

Neville automatically sat in the seat in the back row, farthest from Snape, making Snape roll his eyes and stalk over, cape billowing, to stand beside the table.

He muttered a quiet spell and waved his wand, keeping it suspended in air for a few seconds before lowering it, and Neville found himself in a deeply cushioned, large armchair, with a matching one facing him across the table.

"Just in case anything goes wrong which, knowing you, it will," drawled Snape, lowering himself elegantly into the chair while Neville was struggling not to drown in his, impeding his ability to be indignant. "Now since McGonagall already explained the entire real situation to me last night when I 'rescued' her," he smiled wryly. "I thought we could start immediately. Legilimens!"

Neville suddenly found himself reliving his childhood. He was wrapped in something soft and there were people babbling and cooing incomprehensibly, one familiar voice shouting triumphantly "It's a boy!" as a bright white light glared down at him through his closed eyelids. Then, just as unexpectedly, he was sitting down in a high chair and laughing as a woman tried to convince him his applesauce was a train, spitting it out onto his tray and delighting at her frustrated expression.

And then everything went dark.

"Longbottom. Stop playing, I know you're awake, there's no way that potion didn't work. Get up already, I don't have all night to pamper you with my valuable attention," came a voice from somewhere near Neville's head.

"God, do you hear the way you talk about yourself?" said Neville groggily, picking up his head and then widening his eyes as he realized who he was talking to, but Snape chose to ignore his comment, seemingly preoccupied.

"You didn't tell me you had been Obliviated," he said sharply. "How can McGonagall expect me to work with such a broken mind, teach you to defend it from the Dark Lord, no less?"

Neville was surprised; McGonagall hadn't told him she was expecting him to be able to learn how to defend himself against even the Dark Lord. And he had never been Obliviated!

"Professor, I've never been Obliviated," said Neville confusedly, and Snape looked down on him with something akin to pity for a split second before holding out a silver flask. "Drink."

"What is it?" asked Neville, unsure whether taking an unknown potion from Snape was such a good idea, though Snape could, of course, easily lie to him.

"A Calming Draught."

"Bailey's Irish Cream, right?" asked Neville knowledgably, causing Snape to raise a brow as he downed the mixture in one gulp.

"Right. We can't do any more tonight, so just get to bed. You've overworked yourself at the greenhouse today; you shouldn't have said you were available tonight."

Biting back a retort that he hadn't wanted to but had been intimidated into it, Neville merely nodded and headed back to bed, too tired to do anything other than fall into bed and go to sleep, fully clothed, at only 9:30.

Neville awoke at 8:00 to a beeping continuing incessantly near his head and reached his hand up, groping until he found the 'off' button on his alarm. Wait, his alarm?

He picked his head up groggily and found a magical alarm clock with a broomstick on the face flying around happily. The note on top simply said, "Winky won't always be available to wake you up" and was signed Professor McGonagall. Neville smiled sleepily and plopped back into bed.

"WAKE UP!" screamed a blood-curling voice and Neville shot up like a rocket, finding the postscript he had missed saying it had a sensor attached to his bed and would try many different methods of waking him up until it found the weight gone from his sheets. He got dressed quickly and headed downstairs, where he sat down to eat breakfast happily. And found Snape directly across from him.

Unsettled, he ate and talked little, Snape watching him the whole time as though he were some rare new potions ingredient he had never seen before. Then he ran down the steps and worked out his anxiety in the greenhouses, Sprout excusing herself from their lunch halfway through to do some paperwork ("I am a teacher, after all, no matter how hard I try to forget it,") and leaving him alone with Professor McGonagall.

"Are you aware," said McGonagall conversationally, "that you have been subject to an extremely powerful Memory Charm at a very young age?"

"What?" pronounced Neville carefully, happy he currently had no tea in his mouth to spit out in shock.

"I'll take that as a no. As you are eighteen, and of age, I find myself responsible of telling you that as Snape read your mind he discovered that when you were around eleven moths of age, a powerful witch cast a very complex Memory Charm, removing less than half-an-hour's worth of memories."

"How do you know? And can't it have been a wizard?"

"Snape is very… skilled at reading minds in more than just one way," said McGonagall, and then was silent for a moment before continuing., "and we suspect your grandmother was the one to cast the spell."

Sitting back, head reeling, Neville found himself unable to utter anything except a strangled, "Gran?"

"The spell has affected your memory quite badly, and the Ministry knows of no way to reverse Memory Charms. It will be extremely difficult for you to learn how to hold your own against any mildly talented Legilimens, and impossible against Voldemort."

Neville no longer flinched at the name, used to it from years as Harry's friend.

"But why would she…" he trailed off, remembering what had happened when he was a baby, and McGonagall looked at him grimly.

"She probably thought it would have traumatized you. There's no excuse for her not telling you when you got older, however, and I'll be talking to her about that soon."

Neville gave a faint grin, imagining someone trying to lecture his grandmother. "So there's nothing I can do?"

"The ministry knows of no legal way to reverse the charm," said McGonagall, looking at him intently.

"So there's an illegal way to reverse it and you know how," said Neville.

"Close," she answered, smiling. "I know of a way to reverse it that would probably be illegal if they knew about it."

"Why?"

"Because most things turn illegal when there's a possibility they'll interfere with the Ministry's more underhanded methods," said McGonagall mischievously. "Though people they don't want to stay Obliviated mysteriously recover."

"Let's do it."

"Neville, I'm not going to talk you out of this but I do want you to understand you're going to recover some very painful memories. Hopefully the other damage done to your brain will also be recovered, but you never know. Also, since this is going to repair a memory deep within the recesses of your mind, it can hurt."

Seeing Neville was simply waiting to be told what to do, she added,

"A lot." At that he winced a little, and she handed him a red pill which he immediately swallowed.

"That doesn't hurt so much," said Neville thoughtfully, and then his face contorted in agony. "Oh man," he said, before crumpling into his chair. McGonagall sighed.

The boy was making her far too impulsive. She supposed he took after his grandfather that way, she thought wryly before levitating him to bring him back to his room. He was going to get little enough rest over the next few days that he needed all he could get now, especially with his new memories; Professor Sprout could manage without him for a few hours, and claiming the boy had fainted from exhaustion wasn't such a stretch since he hadn't been drinking close to enough water for all the strenuous work he had done that day.