by DawningStar
The witch at the front desk looked faintly startled to see him back again, but she smiled and waved him on through. Reaching Laurel's green-painted door, Neville was surprised to find it standing slightly open. He looked in, to find Alex inside, seated against one wall and apparently talking to the plants.
The patient turned at the sound of the squeaking door, and grinned broadly at the sight of Neville. "So you did come back!" he exclaimed.
"Of course. Why wouldn't I?" Neville asked, a little defensively.
Alex leaned back against the wall. "Oh, you know, you might've come back to your senses once you left the hospital and realized normal people don't associate with people like us." His grin made it clear the statement was meant to be a joke, but there was an all too serious edge to his tone.
"Well, I wouldn't do that," Neville responded lamely, unable to find anything to say to the remark. "Is Laurel here?"
"I assume so. I haven't seen her, but that's hardly unusual."
Neville nodded and searched the thick foliage of the garden for a glimpse of Laurel, but there was no sign of the girl. "Laurel?" he called uncertainly.
A bush rustled, and she slowly emerged from behind it. "So you were listening to me after all?" Alex teased gently.
Laurel managed a faint smile, then looked to Neville. Uncertainly the visitor suggested, "I thought maybe I could go ahead and take that tour, Alex...since you're here, and all."
Alex's grin faded. "About that...I realized maybe no one had told you why I'm here. You may not want to do that after all."
Neville frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm kind of...unlucky. Accidents tend to happen a lot around me."
"I'd noticed," Neville agreed, still puzzled. "That's not why you're here, is it?"
"Well...yes. It's an effect of a miscast spell combined with a Malaclaw bite...no one could figure out how to get rid of the effects, and no one wanted me around them, so I ended up here." Alex shrugged. "So I understand if you don't want to be near me. I don't want anything bad to happen to you."
Neville considered that for a moment. "Thank you for thinking of me, but I'd still like to find out about this place. Unless you've changed your mind, the tour's still on."
A brilliant smile lit Alex's face once more. "Really? Great!" he exclaimed, getting to his feet. He straightened, began to take a step, failed to notice that his shoe had caught in a trailing vine, and promptly fell over. By the time he righted himself, his face was rather flushed with embarrassment. "Er..."
"Don't worry about it," Neville told him. "At least you have an excuse. Most of us are just clumsy." He waited, uncertain how the joke would be taken.
But Alex let out a chuckle. "Good point, Neville."
Looking back at Laurel, Neville inquired, "Do you want to come? I mean, I know you don't usually like to get out, but I thought maybe..."
Her brown eyes grew large with fear, but she glanced at Alex, then back to Neville, and slowly nodded.
"I've never seen you this responsive, Laurel," Alex commented in surprise. "Normally you just pretend not to hear us."
Laurel illustrated the remark by ignoring it entirely. Alex let out a sigh and led the way out of the garden, closely followed by Neville and Laurel.
"We call this the Garden Hall, for obvious reasons," Alex began as they emerged from the garden. "The garden itself is just Laurel's Garden, and it's about the best place in the wing if you want some quiet. Though we hardly ever actually see Laurel in there." He glanced at Laurel, who hung slightly behind Neville. "Not that I blame you for wanting to keep away from everyone," he added in a softer tone. "From what I've heard..." Alex shook his head and fell silent for a moment.
Finally he continued, "My room's on this hall, too. There's also a couple of storage closets and a few empty rooms," pointing each out to Neville, "and after that it leads into the Long Hall."
Neville looked up and down the connecting corridor in faint bewilderment. It wasn't really all that lengthy, certainly not long enough to fit the name. Only a few dozen feet, with double doors he knew led into the main part of the hospital at one end, and the lounge at the other. Two secondary corridors led off it, in addition to a large attendants' station and a few other doors, none of which looked like patients' rooms.
Alex gave him a somber smile. "It started as a joke," he said quietly. "Most of the names did, I think. The long haul--a long journey, a hard trip. You see it?"
Slowly, Neville nodded. He did. This was the way every patient had to enter the wing, and they all stayed for years. Most would never leave.
The dark-haired man shook off the sudden melancholy mood and waved toward the last door before the entrance to the rest of the hospital, near the attendants' station. "That's the secondary lounge. Most people visit us from there--when they come at all. They don't like seeing anyone in here, like this. Near it, behind their station, the attendants have a little section where they stay, including the kitchen and a few bedrooms so they can spend the night if they have to."
"Do they do that often?" inquired Neville.
"No," Alex said, "they prefer not to, and most of us are fairly self-sufficient--we don't really need constant supervision, anyway, not at night. There are a few people who make rounds of the wing from the main parts of the hospital. If a little reluctantly," he added, turning to look back at Neville with a grin--then he tripped for no apparent cause and tumbled to the polished white floor.
Neville suppressed a wince, hoping Alex wouldn't apologize again. The adult seemed to be ashamed of his peculiar affliction, but for him to apologize unnecessarily only made it worse.
But Alex scrambled to his feet without mentioning the incident. Neville wondered suddenly how much of the embarrassment was caused by the attendants' all too obvious irritation with the accidents.
Alex indicated the farther corridor. "That's mostly empty," he told Neville, "a lot of the wing is. They try to keep people in the main wing as much as possible. They're afraid it might get overcrowded here, since no one ever leaves."
Eyes widening, Neville gasped without thinking, "No one? But Polly and Billy, and Rufus--and you--someone'll find a cure for you, won't they? I mean, it's semi-permanent, they can't just keep people in here--!" He fell silent, realizing how rude the outburst had been. "That is...I--I thought--"
"You're just digging yourself deeper," Alex advised with a short laugh. "Theoretically, all of us are only in here until we're cured one way or another, yes. But there's been maybe one recorded release from the place. They just added that semi- to the name so we wouldn't give up all hope. No one's really trying to find any cures for us anymore. No one cares enough." The adult wore a cynical expression, covering some long-buried pain.
Neville turned to look at Laurel, still silently following him. How could anyone just forget about her, leave her here alone?
How could anyone want to forget about his own parents? some part of his mind asked sternly, and he barely kept from wincing. I'll do better, he told it. I'll...I'll visit more often...I won't complain about it anymore...
Alex was still watching Neville, his eyes oddly speculative. But then he turned away and led them toward the near hallway. "Most of us are roomed this way. I'm second to the right--next to the cleaning supplies, oddly," he added with a grin. "Laurel's last on the left, though no one can get in through her door anymore. We suppose she's managed some way into the garden, but no one knows what or where."
He knew, Neville realized, and understood just how much trust the frightened girl had placed in him. He wasn't about to betray it.
As they turned the corner into the hall, Neville noted that Alex made no mention of his own parents' room, the first on the left. Instead he pointed out Rufus's heavily reinforced door, "for full moon nights, mostly," and Polly's room.
"And down there--" he was beginning, but broke off sharply. Neville glanced at him, startled, then followed his gaze to an opening door. A black-haired woman who looked little older than a girl stepped into the hallway. She wore a patient's uniform, but seemed strangely out of place. Perhaps it was the way she stared around blankly.
Alex caught up to her in a few long strides, exclaiming, "Yeira! What are you doing out here?"
She turned toward them, looking right past Alex. Her eyes were oddly pale, a gray-blue color. "Where'd you go, Daniel?" she asked vaguely. "I thought you were back outside this time of night."
"No, Yeira, it's me, Alex," he corrected her, touching her hand. "Remember? Alexander?"
Yeira's eyes cleared slightly, and she finally seemed to see Alex. "Alexander?" she asked doubtfully. "And Frank?" turning to Neville.
Neville started. She thought he was his father?
"No," Alex said quickly, "this is Neville. He's a visitor, isn't that nice of him?"
"Oh," she said, her eyes going blank again. "Yes." Yeira looked up, at something no one else could see. "Aren't the stars pretty?"
"The stars are very pretty when they're out," Alex told her gently, beginning to lead her toward the attendants' station in the Long Hall. Neville followed, feeling rather sorry for the patient and wondering what had thrown her so far from reality; Laurel crept quietly behind him, still silent and pale.
Alex rapped on the door. It opened a moment later, Nancy peering out curiously. "Yeira!" she said in surprise. "There you are! Varice has been looking simply everywhere for you. Alex, thank you so much for bringing her back." The attendant stepped out of the doorway and noticed Neville and Laurel. Her face registered surprise for an instant before she controlled it and smiled at the visitor. "And whatever are you doing here, Neville?"
"Oh--Alex is showing me around the wing," Neville replied. "I've never really seen all that much of it."
Nancy's smile flickered for a moment, but she leaned back into the room and called, "Steven, Yeira's here. Do you want to take her down to Varice?"
Neville could have sworn he heard a muttered "Not really" from within before the man he'd seen with Rufus before joined Nancy at the door, smiling down at Neville. "Hey, Neville, Alex. Good to see you out here, Laurel."
The girl shrank behind Neville and made no response. Steven didn't seem to find that unusual, turning to Yeira with a smile. "And you've been driving us all up the wall, running off again, Yeira. Back to Varice with you now."
"I'll come too," Alex volunteered. "Sorry to cut the tour short, Neville, but we're mostly done anyway..."
"That's all right," Neville assured the adult, who grinned at him and set off with Yeira and Steven. Neville looked after them for a moment, only then realizing that Alex hadn't had a single accident since he'd seen Yeira...
"You took a tour of the place with Alex?" Nancy asked, not quite frowning. When Neville nodded, she let out a sigh and muttered "Well, you're braver than I am, young Longbottom," under her breath.
Neville was about to protest when he remembered Laurel's similar comment and fell silent, wondering.
Nancy smiled yet again, opening the door wider. "You can come in if you want. Since you're seeing the wing, you might as well see all of it."
He turned to Laurel, to find her backing away. She shook her head at him, silently refusing to enter the attendants' station.
Neville frowned slightly in bewilderment. "I'll meet you in the garden?" he suggested.
Laurel nodded, with a weak smile, and next moment was silently hurrying away.
"You've really gotten through to her," Nancy commented, "I think this is the most talkative she's ever been." She beckoned Neville through the white door.
Within, richly varnished wooden paneling lined the walls, and the floor was covered by a thick maroon rug. "It's not white," Neville said in surprise before he thought, then wished he could take back the comment.
"It does get a little monotonous, doesn't it," Nancy agreed ruefully. "It's standard procedure--white holds the cleaning spells best. But this is our staff room, so we can decorate it as we like."
Neville nodded in understanding and continued to look around. Several well-stuffed large chairs and round wooden tables were placed around the small room, and a spelled cold-box stood in one corner for drinks. Two other doors led out, refreshingly plain wood. Even the door he'd entered through, Neville saw as Nancy closed it, wasn't painted white on this side.
Nancy was already headed for a second door. As she opened it, Neville caught a glimpse of a long counter, tiny images set into it every few inches. "I've got monitor duty today," she told Neville apologetically, "but no one will mind if you look around here a bit." The attendant hesitated, then added slowly, "There are records in the back room...it might help you with Laurel if you knew what's gone on with her." Then the door closed with a soft click, and Neville was alone.
It was a long moment before Neville moved hesitantly toward the indicated door. It seemed like prying, somehow, even if he did have permission of a sort. Would Laurel mind if he read her records? he wondered, hand on the knob. She'd already shown that she trusted him more than anyone else for more than a decade, from what the attendants and Alex had said, though he still had very little idea as to why.
She wouldn't mind, he decided finally. Probably she wanted him to know, but she'd have trouble telling him herself, quiet as she was...He opened the door.
Nearly every inch of space in the room was taken up by shelves, the aisles between them hardly wide enough to fit through sideways. Bewildering numbers of books and folders filled the shelves, each neatly labeled. Neville stared for a long instant, then walked slowly into the room and shut the door behind him.
It wasn't hard to find the L section, as the shelves were alphabetized by patient's last name. There were several items marked with Laurel's name--summaries, attendants' notes, and detailed recordings of each year she'd been in the hospital. Neville carefully chose the first folder of attendants' notes and a book titled Latifal, Laurel: Summary of Admittance and Subsequent Treatment, and edged his way out of the shelves to a clear space opposite the door.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he opened both. The notes were cross-referenced by date and easy to read, in a neat script that had to be a magical transference from the original papers.
Laurel won't talk to anyone. She refuses to eat or drink while anyone is present in the room, and tries to hide whenever she hears footsteps. We don't know exactly what happened the night her parents were killed, but obviously the trauma of seeing it has made her unwilling to trust anyone. I suggest the use of a Memory Charm, read a note not far from the beginning. It was the one right after that in a different handwriting which made Neville stare at the page for several long minutes.
Considering the effects on young Neville Longbottom, I don't think it's a good idea for Laurel. She's almost three, and she might not recover even as well as he has. A Memory Charm powerful enough to make her forget her parents would be powerful enough to wipe her brain entirely.
Neville stared at the words until they blurred, eyes wide. There was the answer to why he had trouble remembering anything, why he did poorly in school. But his grandmother had never said-- He scrambled for the shelf again, almost panting in his haste. There--beside his parents' names were a very few books labeled Longbottom, Neville. He pulled out the first, fingers trembling, and skimmed through it.
Though admitted to this wing in the hopes that his presence would trigger his parents' memories of happier times, this has not happened. Neville is refusing to eat, and we are considering the use of a Memory Charm on him.
Neville has forgotten almost everything. He no longer is so wary of everyone and everything, but he also has forgotten how to walk, and has stopped using the words he had known. We are reteaching him, and we hope that the Memory Spell will have no ill effects.
There are signs of forgetfulness in Neville, probably a side effect of the spell, though he can now walk again. He forgets where he places his toys, and cannot remember things we told him only a few minutes ago.
Neville has been released from the Semi-Permanent Wing into the custody of his relatives. He is mostly recovered, though he may have trouble remembering things all his life. Apparently, Memory Charms are harmful to very young children, especially once they have learned to walk and talk well.
Neville replaced the records, his mind buzzing. So that was why. And if they hadn't done it, would he still be here, like Laurel, terrified of everyone? If they had used the charm on Laurel, would she be a student at Hogwarts now, even with the memory problems? And why, why hadn't his grandmother told him?
He wasn't sure how long he'd stayed among the records, but it was past time for him to get back to Laurel, or she might start thinking that he'd abandoned her. Neville opened the door into the attendants' lounge.
One attendant was there, a pale-haired wizard Neville recognized--the one who'd first told him about Laurel. He smiled to see Neville and greeted him, "I'm glad you're here. Nancy told me about how much you've done with Laurel. Want to have a seat?"
Faintly uneasy, Neville sat in one of the armchairs. "I haven't really done anything," he said. "I just...talked."
"Whatever you did or didn't do, you're the best hope we've had for Laurel in years," the wizard informed him firmly. "I'm Renard, by the way--I don't think I told you that earlier?"
Neville shook his head. "I...er, I'm glad you think I'm helping Laurel. Maybe she just needed someone her own age."
"That's possible," Renard agreed amiably.
There was a pause. Then, looking at the attendant, something made Neville ask, "How long have you been working here?"
Renard shot a curious glance at Neville. "About seven months. Why?"
"Just wondering," muttered Neville, standing up. "I'd better go, I promised Laurel I'd be back soon..."
"Of course. Go ahead, then." Renard smiled again, and Neville left the room.
Laurel was waiting for him in the garden, stepping out from her plants as soon as he appeared. Her expression was faintly worried, afraid perhaps that he might tell her he never wanted to come back.
Neville hurried toward her. "I wanted to thank you for coming with me," he told her earnestly. "I know you don't like going out of your garden, but I really appreciated it."
A wavering smile appeared, and Laurel murmured an acknowledgement that even listening closely Neville couldn't catch. He didn't ask what she had said, inquiring instead, "Now that I've seen the rest of the place, will you show me your garden? It's by far the most interesting part, after all."
The smile widened, carrying into her deep brown eyes. Neville knew that this garden was what she loved, and surely she rarely got a chance to show off its treasures.
Watching him as though still a little fearful of offending, she took his hand and led him into the green foliage that made up her world.