Title: Absent Christmas
Summary: Every Christmas, Neville Longbottom goes to visit the parents he never knew, and the mother who never remembers him, 'though he shares her face.
Note: I hate that summary – it's so corny. Rather despondent piece, without any particular reason.
Trailing, disconnected thoughts slipped one by one through his mind. Vague threads of comprehension managed to strike the seven year old's consciousness, but with very little success otherwise.
A hand bent with arthritis, cracked and twisted with neglect, reached out to take his own. It uncurled the podgy fingers ineptly, slid a crinkled sweet wrapper into his palm, and carelessly wrapped his fingers back over it.
The child smiled weakly at his mother – his mother, whose eyes were large, edged with red and ferrety; whose hair had long since gone a dim grey, and was turning white. Her expression was blank. She had no idea who this small, chubby boy was, who visited her every year at Christmas.
Yet she never remembered the years before, when he arrived with her husband's mother. If she did, she made no sign. There was nothing there to indicate any recognition.
Her husband sat on the edge of his bed, his back turned to their visitors. Like he always did.
Their son, who they would never know, tried to smile again, eyes flickering over his father's shoulders, the head that wore the same simple brown hair, his slumped form. Any happiness, true or feigned, faded. Neville bowed his head. The tears grew at his eyes – every time, when he'd fought so hard against feelings of resent or melancholy, they won towards the end.
"Thanks, Mum."