The Time Travel Crew

Chapter 10 : Neville sees a change; Draco makes one

Neville Longbottom considered himself to be the happiest baby boy in the world. HIS PARENTS WERE SANE AND ALIVE!

Occasionally, they were visited by his stern Gran, who wasn't any different than she was in the previous time, but Neville accepted the fact graciously.

He's relationship with his grandmother in the previous time, was a very unstable one, in which Neville spent half of his time fearing her and the other half, trying to do his best so that for once, she would give him praise. Neville felt a sense of affection towards his Gran only once she sent him that letter, back in his seventh year while she was on the run, in which she told him that he had taken after his father.

But Neville felt the love of his parents right from the moment he arrived back in time. His mother was putting him to sleep at that moment. Neville started crying then and his parents couldn't figure out the cause of his distress. But he wasn't upset, he was crying with happiness.

It was more than half-an-hour after she left the room that Flitwick came and told him that Harry arrived in time to save his mother, but not his father.

Neville knew it was wrong to be so happy while both, Harry and Mrs. Potter were grieving, but he was an playing the role of an innocent, happy child.

The news of Voldemort's defeat and Harry's and his mother's survival, was all that Neville heard for the next two weeks. It was towards the beginning of the third week, that his parents decided to take off the Fidelius charm! And a day before the day they took it off in the previous time.

This wasn't good. Not good at all. And Neville had no means of contacting any of his time travellers. He just knew something was going to happen before the month ended and that something was not something he was going to like. He considered confounding his parents into delaying, but much to his chagrin, that very spell was the only one he hadn't mastered.

Then that dreaded day arrived, again a day before it was supposed to arrived. It was evening when Neville and his parents were waiting for the arrival of his grandmother in the living room, when there were four loud cracks of apparition, right outside their front door.

Neville wandlessly sent an unbreakable charm on the windows and front door, while his parents looked out of the window to see who it was. Frank sent a protection at the door a second before the Death Eaters tried to blast it. At the same time, Alice grabbed Neville and moved to hurry upstairs, but somehow, the Death Eaters had locked the door and nothing, Neville or his mother did could open it.

There was no way to escape and a boulder appeared in the fireplace out of nowhere. It probably hadn't occurred to his mother, in her panic, to simply transfigure or magically move the boulder.

In desperation, Alice, plopped Neville on the couch and put on as many charms around him in the little time she had, making him and the couch invisible and safe from magic of any kind.

The wall blasted open the same time as Neville heard the woosh of someone landing after traveling through portkey. He had to have imagined it, because he didn't see anyone appear around him, except for four masked Death Eaters who barged in through the hole they made in the wall. Bellatrix Lestrange made herself known with her bone chilling cackle though it was easy to pick her out of the group with her long black hair that fell over her mask.

"Ain't any need t' worry if ya cooperate." said the sickening voice of Rudolphus Lestrange. "We ain't here to kill ya... Jus' wanta know where our Lord is."

Neville's parents' silence said it all, and Neville couldn't identify which party started but a second later, the room was filled with coloured lights zapping from one end of the room to the other.

There was nothing Neville could do to help with the barriers his mother put up around him, preventing magic from passing through. He began to panic. Having just met his parents a little less than a month ago, he wasn't ready to loose them so suddenly and certainly not in this way!

Neville saw his mother fire a stunner at Rabastian Lestrange, whose mask had fallen off, before taking on Bellatrix. But in her haste, Alice's aim wasn't perfect and the stunner missed Rabastian only to - Neville blinked in surprise - change its course and hit Rabastian straight in his chest.

What exactly happened? Neville had no time to ponder about it. Spells were thrown mercilessly on both sides and soon the fourth unidentified Death Eater, presumably the Junior Crouch, fell down with Frank's body-bind.

Two of the Death Eaters were down, but Rudolphus and Bellatrix were both skilled duelists and the house was slowly crumbling down with the with the force of their tiny war. The flower pot containing floo was on the floor, floo power all over the place, window panes and glass and crystal artifacts in the room were now shards of glass and crystal on the floor...Every thing in their living room, except for the couch on which Neville sat, unseen by anyone, was destroyed and Neville couldn't help but notice how both Death Eaters' spells kept veering of course and how they had to jump out of the way of his parents curses that somehow seemed to defy the law of spell trajectory.

It was as if someone was deflecting all his parents' badly aimed spells, just a few of them but enough for Neville but no one else to notice. Then it struck him. Of course! How could he have been so stupid? He hadn't imagined it...someone had traveled by portkey and landed next to the couch. ... someone invisible, probably one of the time travellers itself!

Relief flowed through Neville like never before, not even when Voldemort fell to the floor, dead, by Harry's hand.

Then through the broken wall entered a very surprised Augusta Longbottom, who pulled herself together within a second and fired two stunners at the still standing opponents and down they went.

Neither his parents nor grandmother could do anything at the moment, but stare at each other in shock and surprise and that was the reason only Neville noticed Crouch break out of the body bind and fire a blasting hex at his Gran.

She moved out of the way, but not fast enough to avoid her left arm from getting hit. Blood splattered everywhere and her scream of pain rang around the ruined room as she fell to the floor.

"Mother!" Frank shouted in fear and ran to her aid. Wasting no time, he stopped the bleeding, but by then, she was unconscious.

Alice, in the meantime, had stunned Crouch and tied up the four, now unconscious Death Eaters. She said something to Frank that Neville couldn't hear, removed the protection she placed on Neville, who decided that screaming with fear was his best course of action. Alice hugged him and pointed her wand at the boulder in the cracked fireplace and in two minutes, she turned it to ash, then she started a blazing fire in the empty fireplace. Now, picking up a pinch of floo powder from the floor, she threw it in the fire, stepped into the green flames with Neville in her arms, and said clearly over Neville's screams, "Professor McGonagall's Office, Hogwarts."

They travelled through the floo together and stepped out into a very familiar office and deposited him in the arms of a very stunned McGonagall with a terse, "No time to explain, Minerva. Death Eaters attacked us. Frank's mother's injured. I have to go, please look after him. He's already had his dinner. I'll be back later to collect him."

Then she travelled back to her home through the floo.

Neville stopped screaming only once his mother was out of sight.

McGonagall hugged him and said, "What exactly happened?"

Neville's tongue and mouth found it difficult to pronounce the words, but he did his best and told McGonagall, with his baby voice, exactly what happened at his home. It was after he finished recounting the attack that it dawned upon Neville that his parents were still sane and alive.

Now there was the problem of the Crouch family, which they had decided to put aside. So like the last time, Mrs. Crouch would die in Azkaban while Junior would remain hidden in his father's house under the imperius curse until the crew deemed it necessary to expose him.

There was an urgent knock on the door and a pale, exhausted Snape entered the office, shut the door and warded the room.

"Are you alright, Neville?"

"Yetch, Chevvus. Buch ow dgu - Oh!" Neville's eyes widened. "Itch vauj oo! Oo tame ba poat-tey, ividgibel, and defeted doj pellj!"

[Yes, Severus. But how did you - Oh! It was you! You came by portkey, invisible, and deflected those spells!]

Snape took a moment to understand what Neville was saying, then he nodded, settling down in a chair with a sigh. Neville sighed too -Stupid lisp.

"Filius put an alerting charm that would go off if you were in trouble. It's not very accurate, as it relies on the heart rate of the person you cast it on and your heart beats faster than normal even after some exercise...

"Anyway, the charm was connected to my wristwatch and it went off, probably the moment the Death Eaters arrived at your house."

"De aalaam wenchoff aaly betau off me. Ma Da no no oo ad apatatad aoutchaid de font doe fau a foo shetandj. I noo fom de taat. Itch vauj ony ata dei ook aoutchaid de idoe dat dei noo itch vauj de det itaj. Owj Gan?

[The alarm went off early because of me. Mum Dad didn't know who had apparated outside the front door for a few seconds. I knew from the start. It was only after they looked outside the window that they knew it was the Death Eaters. How's Gran?]

Snape took a longer time to comprehend what Neville said.

"Neville, I-I think the blasting curse was dark magic. Your parents took her to St. Mungo's...I'm sorry, but I don't think the healers will succeed in regrowing her arm."

At least she was alive, Neville thought with a shudder. But he didn't really wish to make a spectacle of himself again and contented himself with an, "Aai Aadatad."

[I understand.]

Snape left before anyone could get suspicious after saying that he would head up to Dumbledore's office to say that he agreed to the project.

Neville sent a questioning look up at Minerva in whose lap he was sitting.

She smiled down at him and said, "Pomona gave Albus your suggestion of house unity. Let's just say the idea has really stuck in his head. Albus and we Heads of House have decided to call it the House United Project."

Neville beamed at her. Who would have even guessed that they would take his, Neville's suggestion seriously?

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Playing with toys and being cuddled and supervised at all times was something, Draco Malfoy had never signed up for. He was bored. There was nothing he could do, no books, no friends and no action...Even his privacy was breached.

He, without any doubt, was happy living through his childhood again, but he had never spared a thought about all this nonsense until it all happened.

When he arrived into the body of his one year old self, he found himself in a large crib. Not knowing what else to do, he feigned sleep. He had probably dozed off, when Flitwick, after making sure he was wide awake, told him that they had arrived earlier than planned and that Harry had saved his mother from death.

For the next few days he kept his ears open. His father had somehow got himself out of persecution, but Pettigrew was arrested. The next piece of news Draco received was that his aunt, Bellatrix along with Rudolphus and Rabastian Lestrange and Barty Crouch Junior were condemned to Azkaban for attacking the Longbottom home.

However, Draco was happy to hear that Neville had his parents well and alive. His grandmother had lost her arm in the fight, which was unfortunate, but it could have been worse.

Draco also learnt that the Longbottoms' home couldn't be repaired and so they all moved to the house in which Neville grew up in the previous time, with his Gran and Grandad. Now, Neville and his parents would have a home and Augusta Longbottom would have a lot of helping hands whenever she needed. However, life wasn't going to be easy for any of them and Draco just wondered how much time would pass before either the Potters or Longbottoms faced another challenge.

Draco wanted to retrieve the diary, but there were many things that made it difficult for the time being. The constant surveillance was one. Another hindrance was his legs, which were too weak to move for his liking. The third obstacle was that Draco hadn't yet mastered the vanishing spell, so the diary couldn't be retrieved until he could find a safe place to put it.

Harry had warned him against keeping the diary on or near him. So all in all, it wasn't the right time to obtain the diary. But Draco succeeded in putting a monitoring charm on the diary just in case the future did change and his father decided to give it away earlier than the previous time.

At the moment, Draco huffed in frustration as his mother held him in her arms and rubbed his back, waiting for him to fall asleep. How he wished he could do something...

Harry made a difference the moment he entered his younger self's body. Neville changed his future almost a month later. Or rather, it was Snape's doing, but it did involve Neville.

It was time he, Draco did something too. But what?

The answer came to him the next morning when he saw Dobby's fingers covered in bandages. He had never liked that elf, but now that his conscience and value for life and humanity had increased tenfold, Draco felt sorry for him.

That day, when Dobby was watching over him, Draco cast a wandless spell, increasing the speed of the elf's healing and for the rest of the day, he tried his best to give the little creature as much of rest as he could.

But the next week, when Draco heard the poor elf squealing with pain as Lucius's charmed whip flogged him, he knew what had to be done and how it would make a difference.

That evening, before dinner, Draco put a powerful, undetectable compulsion charm on his father and an undetectable confunding charm on his mother. Then he sat on his high chair and watched the fun. It didn't last long, but for Draco, anything out of routine in the Malfoy Manor was fun.

Dobby's feet pattered on the floor as he rushed into the room carrying a large tray with Draco's and his parents dinner. Lucius stood up with a serious look on his face.

"Dobby," he said gravely.

"Y-y-yes M-m-master."

"Come hear."

Dobby did so, hesitantly.

Lucius slowly raised his wand and in a minute, a pair of torn socks flew into the room.

Lucius gingerly held the socks between his index finger and thumb and said, "You are worthless! Absolutely unworthy to be a servant for the Malfoys and hence, Dobby, I give you clothes! Take!"

Dobby who fliched after every insult Lucius threw at him, squealed in surprise and grabbed hold of the socks.

Draco took advantage of the astounded elf and put a charm on him, compelling him to willingly give his services to the Longbottoms.

With another squeal, this time of happiness, Dobby vanished with a loud crack.

To be continued...

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are doing well. I will not be uploading next week because of my exams. So I will continue after I've done with them.

Take care!!