Author's Note: "Letters" has been removed; I realized I didn't even like the story that much, upon rereading it. Plus I got a flame in the first hour it was up. I will follow this story with another Draco story though.
Chapter Three
" How far back in time are we going?" Neville asked nervously, staring at the grave, the sparse weeds scattered on it both tragic and beautiful. He hadn't had time to clean up the graves, nor had anyone else. It appears that once you die, you remain alive until people forget you. The people here were surely dead.
" We will have to see how far back we have to go," Death explained simply. She smiled secretively and added, " We'll start by going back to your grandmother's death and stopping it, and then see if that changes things any."
" But wouldn't that leave us back where we started? With my grandmother disturbing fate and causing headaches for everyone?" Neville asked.
" There's only one way to find out. Maybe if we convince her well enough that we've seen the future, and its best for her and for you to accept your fates?"
" That sounds sketchy," Neville admitted, " Hard to believe, too."
Death looked troubled, " If I go all the way back to the past and make sure the fortune teller doesn't wed the Longbottom male, then a large part of you would be gone, if not all of you. The future would be absolutely different for your family."
Neville looked at her nervously, unsure of what sort of thaumaturgy he should be expecting. Finally, he asked, sheepishly, " So we'll be experimenting around? Rewinding and then fast forwarding across the tape of time?"
" Don't tell me you're not up to it all of a sudden?" She put her hands on her hips.
He scratched the back of his head nervously, " Can't you tell me what my future was supposed to be? So that I could figure out if its worth pursuing?"
" I can't do that," Death said, " Because it wouldn't be the unknown mysterious future, it would be the known present but delayed."
" Oh."
" Isn't the future itself worth pursuing?" She questioned.
" Either way I'll have a future though," Neville said, " And quite honestly, the world is just fine the way it is. I'm just Neville Longbottom, I wasn't meant for anything great. Hermione was, perhaps, and certainly Harry Potter. Whatever my future is, it doesn't quite matter. I'm ready for anything right about now."
" Do you really value your life so little?" Death demanded, " You only get one shot at life, you know."
Neville was silent though. He didn't know how to respond, really; how could he know how to respond? It had been so long since he had last really thought about his life as something going in a particular direction! He had long since realized that he was a clumsy lad. His face was ordinary, not ugly but certainly not handsome either. Pallid skin, mousy hair, ordinary features, a jaw that didn't have any personality to it. Past the reflection in the mirror was his personality – his nerves were frayed, he was used to being ridiculed and embarrassed in front of everyone daily. He had grown to rely solely on himself since childhood because his parents weren't around, his friends didn't quite treat him in the same extent as they did one another, and his grandmother had always been on the absentminded side. He had nearly raised himself, with his grandmother's stern and mature hand guiding him. He wasn't even twenty yet, but he felt his life was already so dull that nothing promising seemed on the horizon.
And then came this proposition.
This life, as he knew it, could have been different. Dare he even think that it could have been splendidly better? There was something in his future that was very precious and wonderful. A jewel of a future to stand out from the barren rocks and coals of his past. Somewhere in the fabric of time his own future had been stitched over due to the tampering his relatives had caused on the order of fate. So perhaps it was a minimal effect; Neville lost his grandmother, a key player in whatever it was that would make his future so grand. Two people's lives had been changed – his future had been dulled down from the original jewel to yet another stone on the path; his grandmother was dead. She had been old and it was nearly time for her anyway, and Neville…
Neville couldn't think of what he really had to look forwards to. He wasn't skilled in any way, he certainly had no specific talents or key features that made him stand out in any way. His stomach turned as he looked at Death with a distressed expression on his face.
" Don't tell me what I think you're about to tell me," She sank to the ground again in front of the grave. A steadier rain was beginning and her skin looked even paler, nearly gray, in the mist of water around them suddenly.
Neville pressed his lips together, unsure of what to say then.
Death plucked at the ankh around her neck, the symbol for eternal life, an ironic symbol on Death herself. Slowly she twirled the ankh between her fingers and a small dent appeared in the ground of the grave. It was comparable to a hole that would be made in the ground if a medium-sized rock were to be pulled out of some compact soil.
" What are you doing?" Neville wondered aloud.
" I know you don't mean that," Death said definitively, her fingers digging into the dent. She spread them apart and a blinding white light poured out from the hole, encompassing them both. Suddenly all he could hear was Death talking on, and her ankh, now stark black and the single thing that he could see out than a field of white stretching in each direction, " Nobody knows just how much they are missing out on life until they see the other polar end. Until they see death."
" But didn't I already see you?" Neville didn't quite comprehend at first, then felt his ears redden in embarrassment, " Oh, of course, I see…"
The white whirled around him, even though he couldn't see it, it made the sound of something rubbing around past him, like when you whip some satin sheets off a bed. The satin-smooth feel was over his skin, rubbing past him, and suddenly he found himself sitting beside the grave again, on the ground, Death standing beside him. Only it was early spring, and he knew that time had been shifted backwards.
Neville looked at Death, surprised, then turned to see his grandmother walking up the lawn towards him, supported with a cane. Neville felt tears spring to his eyes instantly, " Grandmother," He said, standing up. He looked at Death, his eyebrows raised, asking silently, What am I supposed to do?
Death looked at his Grandmother matter-of-factly and said, " We've come to fix fate."
Boom.
Just like that, Death had thrown the cards on the table. Neville was taken aback. Is this what they mean about Death striking in most unexpected ways?, he thought.
" What do you mean?" Neville's Grandmother straightened up slightly, taken aback as well.
" I thought we would go about it gently, not wallop her in the face with it!" Neville exclaimed to Death, " Grandmother, we…"
" We've come to fix an error in time," Death cut him off, looking very serious suddenly. Then, she lightened up again, smiling, " We don't have time to fool around with it, anyway. Mrs. Longbottom, you are aware that you have witnessed a manipulation of fate?"
Mrs. Longbottom stared at her blankly for a second, then nodded, " Are… are you here to fix it?"
Neville felt his stomach sink. My own grandmother! I always thought she was a bit hard to believe things, and here she is - completely believes everything, hook, line, and sinker, Neville thought, his eyebrows raising.
Death nodded, " Actually, we would like it if you didn't make a big deal out of it. You see, you… you raised quite an uproar about it, and that's what really screwed fate up. Even when fate is altered, you can still argue it was fate to do so. Fate is a pliable thing, in perspective," Death looked at Neville, " But by making such an uproar about how your family's fate had been changed, you've averted too much attention to it. By focusing on the fact that your fate really was wrong, you made my sisters and brothers work extra hard to cover. The only mistake is that you acknowledged the mistake."
" So… so I suppose it was intended after all?" Mrs. Longbottom said, her eyebrows knitted.
" Yes… and I've come early to stop you and to make sure that you, simply, live with the change in fate. It's for the best, especially since we had to… dispose of you… to cover, before. If you know what I mean," Death smiled nervously.
Mrs. Longbottom nodded, ashen.
Neville looked at his grandmother incredulously, " Grandmum…"
Mrs. Longbottom asked Death, almost ignoring her grandson, " Did I put my grandson in danger in the future? Did I change anything?"
Death looked sad, " I don't really know. Your grandson had a rather impressive fate otherwise. You see, it … well, I can't say, but it's very impressive. Entirely different, and all."
Neville felt a stinging pain inside of him, " How do you even know it was meant to be changed around like that? And there's not much that we can change by going back a year and letting my grandmother live."
Death looked at him seriously, " Well, for one thing, I think we might need your grandmother to go further back in the past and fix things. And once we do, I'll let you return to your lives in the future, after giving you a quick fast forward to see how it changed."
" You mean we will change everything?" Mrs. Longbottom asked, barely audible.
Death nodded, " It's the only way. Fate's been spun around too much, and when Destiny and I figured out just how different the Longbottom future was…" She stopped and stared at them, " Hey, let's go and take care of the past then!"
" Now?" Neville looked nervous, " But this will change everything."
" If you don't like it…" Death smiled, " Destiny told me I could let you have the option of changing everything back to the way it was. Your grandmother gone, fate forever changed, the world just a bit different."
" Well… when you put it that way…" Neville said.
" Neville," His grandmother scolded, " Don't be silly, this is an opportunity."
" But I don't know how different it will be," Neville complained, " I'm scared to know. How can I choose between… lives? What if this is the one I was meant to have? What if fate did intend for things to happen like this?"
Death smiled, " Well, if you believe that fate chose all this, wouldn't you say that whatever your choice will be now, it was decided by fate anyway, and whichever life you prefer would have been chosen by fate?"
Neville blinked, confused.
Death smirked, " I talked about it before. Perhaps it was fate after all to make your grandmother make such a stirrup. Perhaps it was your old, predestined fate that was wrong. It did, after all, drastically change the fate of Harry Potter."
She looked concerned suddenly, realizing she had slipped something very, very revealing out.
Neville's face changed, too, " Let me see my other life then."
Author's Note: Neville's very-different future seems to have something to do with Harry Potter then. His fate, if he chooses it, will drastically change Harry's, but make his life completely different, if not better. Or, he could simply live with the fact that his fate was a bit jumbled somewhere along the way, and go back to being a young, single male in a dead end job, with all his most beloved, nearest family dead or in St. Mungo's. Which path will he choose? Review, and find out.
