26

Neville woke up to what he thought must be an earthquake. His bed shook, and Trevor and Fiend both hopped on top of him, Trevor croaking, Fiend meowing. In the bed across from him, Ron woke up with a startled, "Whazzappening?"

"Earthquake?" Neville guessed.

"No," Harry said, sitting up and putting his glasses on. He was looking out the window, straining his neck to see something to the right. "There's smoke, or dust, or something…"

Ron and Neville rushed to his side.

"That's the hospital wing, isn't it?" Ron asked.

A desperate meowing and scratching had them all turning their heads. Fiend was at the door. On the other side, they could hear a cat meowing.

Neville ran to the door, wrenching it open, expecting to find Crookshanks. But no, Crookshanks was at Grimmauld Place. This was another cat.

"McGonagall's cat!" he remembered.

The boys didn't waste time talking after that. They snatched up their wands and ran, the felines already ahead of them. Only one of the Aurors stationed outside the portrait hole remained, and she tried to stop them.

But Harry just yelled, "Lestrange!" and the Auror ended up running along with them.

"But how could he've gotten -" the Auror started to ask.

"Never mind that!" Harry yelled.

A moment later, Neville's parents dashed around a corner, wands raised.

"Did you hear -" Alice began.

"The hospital wing!" Neville gasped.

"Let's GO!" Harry roared, and they all kept running, as portraits around them started shouting warnings.

"There was an explosion -"

"- thought the war was over -"

"- heard someone yell -"

"THERE!" Harry shouted, as two figures appeared ahead.

One was Rabastan Lestrange, pale and vicious. He had his handless arm wrapped around the waist of a woman, the Healer, who was limping and looked dazed. On the floor behind them, the other Auror lay unconscious or dead, Neville couldn't tell which.

At the sight of them, Rabastan dropped the woman and darted down another corridor.

"He's mine!" Alice snarled, sprinting after him. Harry and Ron tore after her, leaving Neville, Frank, and the other Auror to face down the woman, who, though clearly injured, still managed to fire off two Blasting Hexes before Neville Disarmed her. The Auror rushed to her fallen colleague's side while Neville and Frank approached the Healer.

She stared up at them from her knees, blood dripping from a cut on her head. Neville felt a sick shiver at the sight of her, the woman who had so often patted him on the head as a child, when Gran had first started bringing him to see Mum and Dad.

"Why?" Frank asked.

Her gaze was cold and calm. "I serve the Dark Lord."

Neville wanted to ask why, but instead he said, "How did you get into the castle?"

"The wards are weak. We came through the forest." She was gasping a little, in pain rather than fear, Neville thought.

"Why did you let Snape help them?" he asked. "My mum and dad."

She grimaced. "I didn't know… not until it was too late." Her expression cleared. "It makes no difference. Nothing matters, not now." She steeled herself. "Finish it."

Neville looked at her in surprise. Then he looked at his father, who said, "No. Stupefy!"

She slumped to the floor. Dad tied her up and locked her in an empty classroom. "Guard her," he said to the Auror, and he and Neville took off running again. Neville couldn't get the Healer's face out of his head. He remembered the Death Eaters he had killed by the greenhouses, and couldn't help wondering if his father would have done the same. He felt slightly sick.

He had to put that aside now, though. Already, they could hear the shouts from a floor above.

"Alice, no!"

"Mrs. Longbottom, I don't think -"

"CRUCIO!"

Neville's stomach dropped. That was Mum's voice. He and Dad took the stairs two at a time, bursting into the next corridor only to run straight into Ron and Harry.

"Aargh - Neville! Where's -"

Rabastan Lestrange's shrieks drowned out the rest of his question. Neville pushed past Ron, only to stop short as an invisible barrier slammed into him, keeping him from the two people on the other side.

His mother stood over the crumpled form of Rabastan Lestrange, her face twisted into a mask of such ferocity she looked, for a moment, almost like the man at her feet. He was sobbing and snarling by the time she lifted the curse, but he had strength enough to spit at her.

"Crucio!" she hissed again.

He screamed.

"Mum!" Neville shouted, just as Frank cried, "Alice!"

She ignored them completely.

Neville glanced from side to side, raising his hands to push against the invisible barrier, but it stretched all across the corridor. Harry and Ron were glancing awkwardly from Neville to his mum, while Frank stared with an anguished expression at his wife.

Neville waited until Lestrange's screams had stopped, then shouted again, "Mum!"

She glanced at him this time, her expression still full of violence. "Stay out of this, Neville."

"Alice," Frank said. Neville saw their eyes meet, and something unspoken and terrible seemed to pass between them, something that made Neville want to look away.

"I need to do this," she whispered.

In that moment, she looked nothing at all like the frail, wispy woman Neville had visited all those years, nothing like the happy girl he had seen in old photographs. She was someone else, not his mum, not anyone he knew, and yet he felt more compassion for her than he had ever felt for anyone in his life.

He looked at his dad, who looked sad, and old.

"Quick," Frank said quietly. "Clean."

Alice shuddered, anger and horror sliding over her face, shifting every second. Finally she looked down at the creature on the floor and said, "Avada Kedavra."

Green light flared, flashing against the yellow sunrise streaking through the windows. Then it was done.

Neville felt the invisible barrier fall, but he couldn't move. Mum turned away, wiping her eyes, then swayed toward the wall. She reached out to catch herself, but Dad was there to catch her first, holding her tight and whispering something Neville couldn't hear.

"Er -" Ron said, shifting from foot to foot. "Maybe we should -"

"Yeah," Harry said. "We'll just -"

They hurried away down the stairs, leaving Neville standing there, not sure whether to look at his parents or go away. They were still holding each other, not whispering anymore, just safe in each other's arms in a way Neville had never been safe in anybody's. He felt horribly out of place.

He was just turning to go when Mum whispered, almost begged, "Neville?"

He looked back at her immediately. She was holding out a hand to him, tears on her face, looking almost scared. He went to take her hand.

Her gaze searched his, the fear on her face growing. "Neville… I…"

"You don't have to explain, Mum." He took a shaky breath. "I've killed people, too."

He expected them both to look horrified. Instead, they looked terribly, bitterly sad.

"I murdered him," Alice said, still searching his face.

Neville nodded. He knew she wanted more, so he said, "Why?"

Emotions swept over her face, fear and hatred and shame and grief. "I didn't want him to remember me anymore."

Tears pricked Neville's eyes, and he squeezed her hand, still closed in his. "That seems like a good reason."

She let out a little sob and collapsed against him, but didn't keep crying then. Instead she whispered, "I love you so much, Neville. I missed you so much."

Neville hugged her back, hurting and happy, wanting it all to be over so they could just be people again, not broken or afraid.

It was Dad who ended the moment. "Snape," he said.

Neville and Mum broke apart, Neville with a bolt of fear in his heart. None of them said anything as they hurried back down the stairs, along the corridor to the dusty hospital wing.

The hospital wing was barely recognizable. Half of the outer wall had crumbled away, leaving ragged blocks of stone that trailed dust into the sunrise like smoke. Most of the beds had been blasted apart, and scraps of sheets and blankets lay tattered on the floor along with chunks of charred mattress. Here and there, broken glass from the windows glimmered in the morning light.

Snape was lying in a bed, eyes closed, unmoving. McGonagall was sitting in the bed beside his, a thick bandage around her head and another wrapping itself around her elbow under the direction of Madam Pomfrey. Harry and Ron were already there, as were Hermione and several other Order members.

"- spell hit the wall," McGonagall was saying. "The entire thing collapsed around me. When I woke up, he was like this," she gestured to Snape. "I couldn't wake him. I don't know what's wrong with him."

"I do," Harry said heavily.

"Yes," Hermione said sadly. "It's the Hundred Year Sleep."

Neville went cold.

"The what?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"The Hundred Year Sleep," Bill said slowly. "It places the victim in a comatose state until True Love's Kiss lifts it. If the victim isn't kissed within a hundred years, the victim dies."

Ron was staring at Harry and Hermione with a confused look. "How did you two know about it?"

They glanced at each other hastily. Harry cleared his throat. "It's, er, it's in a Muggle fairy tale."

Ron stared at them suspiciously, but Alice spoke before he could. "But who loves Snape?"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Most of them were looking at each other or at the floor. Neville looked at Snape, with his greasy, unkempt hair, his pale, gaunt face, the sharp hook of his nose, the impenetrable black of his robes. He liked Snape now, as odd as that seemed, but he couldn't say that he loved him.

He glanced at Dad, who had a sad, grim expression on his face. Then he looked at McGonagall, who looked as guilty as he felt.

"Surely… surely someone…" she said, but trailed off.

Hermione had tears in her eyes. Even Ron looked sad.

"But this is awful," Mr. Weasley said, looking around at them all. "Isn't there anyone?"

Another silence followed. Finally, Ron said what most of them were thinking. "Who would love Snape?"

Mr. Weasley looked at him disapprovingly, but Ron threw his hands up. "I mean… really, though? He's mean to everyone."

He saved my parents, Neville thought, hating himself. He saved everyone in the war.

"Ron," Ginny said, frowning.

"I'm not trying to be a git, obviously I know what he's done for us, but -"

"Ron, shut up," Ginny said. "Look."

She pointed at the bed. They all looked. Fiend had jumped onto Snape's stomach, kneading her paws into it, mewing a little in dismay.

She glanced around at them all, looking upset, then turned a frantic, determined face back to Snape. Padding up to his head, she sniffed at his lips.

Everyone held their breath.

She lowered her head and licked him.