IV
At first sight Neville looked the same as he had in the pub that afternoon, if somewhat more inconspicuous. He had finally grown into his awkward limbs during his seventh year and had broadened through the shoulder and chest. By the time he turned nineteen Neville had become a well built young man and lost much of the gawky clumsiness of his adolescent self. But the trials of the years since Dumbledore's death, including the loss of his mother when she was so close to recovery, had etched themselves sharply into his face and given a tragic cast to his eyes, rendered him gaunt and untidy. Now five years on and seen close to, it was hard to remember that unhappy young man. The man in front of her was dressed impeccably in a black muggle suit and pinstriped pink shirt. He was clean shaven, had neatly combed hair and what appeared to be a Rolex on his left wrist. Most strikingly changed though was his face, which had lost many of the lines of sadness, swapping them for marks of character and maturity. He still had a small scar on his chin, gained during a scrap with Crabbe and Goyle during seventh year, but it was faded almost to invisibility by time.
Hermione's breath caught as she looked at him and he stood frozen staring at her, then she was able to move, throwing herself into his arms, which instinctively opened to catch her. She clutched his broad shoulders and buried her face at his throat, inhaling his masculine scent, beginning to cry against his neatly pressed collar. "Hermione. Hermione" he muttered against her hair. His arms holding her tightly to him. "Merlin! I can't believe I found you! I didn't want to hope!" He lifted her away from himself, clasping her arms, eager eyes scanning across her features, gazing into hers. "It's so wonderful to see you!"
"Neville-" she stuttered. She felt his strong grasp on her arms, knew he was really there. Peripherally she was aware of the people around them who had all stopped to see what the commotion was… decided she didn't care. "Neville, you came."
"Of course I came Hermione. But how did you do it?"
"The dreams? An ancient-" she stopped, about to say 'magic'. "But we can't talk here. You weren't followed? Then come home with me."
Hermione's flat wasn't far from the library. They didn't speak much on the bus ride, just looking, trying to soak in each other's appearance after so long, trying not to let memories overwhelm them. Neville thought Hermione was pale, but perhaps that was her normal complexion, she still bit her lip he noticed. It was strange, even now, to see her without Ron, Harry or even Ginny at her side; they had always been so inseparable.
She looked well for the most part, conservatively dressed- as befit a librarian he supposed- hair tied back in a manageable knot on her nape, its exuberance tamed by an army of bobby-pins. She wore little make-up, just some subtle colour around the eyes and mascara on the lashes. Her face was as it had appeared in his dream; a little older-looking, a few extra lines about the eyes and on her brow. She did not look happy precisely, but it was not the weary, ill-looking countenance of their last meeting, or her final months in England. She looked… peacefully resigned, content with what she had made of her new life.
He wondered what that involved. What was April like now? She would be six. Did she look like Ginny or Harry? Briefly he wondered where she stayed while Hermione was at work. Was there a man in their life? Was he perhaps the one who looked after April during the day? Had she found love after Ron or someone she could rely on to share her daily existence? Or did they survive on their own? April staying with some friend they had made here in France or perhaps a helpful neighbour?
"This is it." The bus had come to a halt on a street lined with apartment blocks. It was not an unpleasant area; there were a few established trees, the buildings were all well maintained, the road not despoiled by litter, the bus stop was a proper one with three walls and a roof. It just appeared very… practical. The buildings were all brown brick or off-white paint, the doors all white-painted wood, blinds down on most of the windows and no gardens to care for. There was no sign of individuality.
Hermione set off at a brisk pace down the street and Neville fell in step beside her, after a couple of hundred metres she nudged him to turn right, crossed the grass verge and the footpath and walked up the front steps of a building that looked exactly like any other on the street. She fumbled around in her bag for a few moments, before producing a key, turning the lock and stepping inside. She held the door for Neville, and then without giving him a chance to look around, walked through to the lifts and pushed the up button. The doors immediately slid open and they stepped in. Neville, who was by now quite accustomed to muggle elevators, watched without any particular interest as the doors slid shut and she pushed a button for her floor. The lift lurched into motion and he listened to the high pitched chime as each number above the door lit up. It halted on the sixth floor, the doors opened and they walked down the hallway to door 604. Hermione slid the key in again and they stepped into her home.
Neville smiled appreciatively as he took in the decor. The walls were a soft gold with matching curtains and she had deep ruby covers on her couches and a carpet under the coffee table of a similar shade. Hanging on one wall was an oversized old print of a bewigged woman in an evening dress who looked remarkably like the Fat Lady. "Hermione!" he exclaimed. She turned to see what he was looking at.
"Yes. It's a bit much I know, but I saw it one day in an antiques store, covered in dust and with no price tag. The woman who owned the store wasn't interested in a worthless old print- she just wanted money for the frame- and when I told her it reminded me of someone I had lost, she gave it to me."
"I think it's wonderful. All of it."
"I wasn't sure at first and it was so hard to do, but now it brings me pleasure, mostly. My good memories reside in Hogwarts."
He hesitated-"Then they don't bring you pain anymore?"
"I wouldn't say that- it still aches, but it's bittersweet and all I have. I would have nothing but April otherwise."
And Neville knew right then that she had never recovered. Perhaps never would. They had been so young, but she and Ron had been destined for each other. Fate had cheated on that day when he was lost.
Neville could only be grateful that he had never loved so deeply. Oh, it had hurt like a heart wound to loose his parents again, especially when he had been starting to feel so hopeful about his mother- he might never stop grieving for them and others, but in a way they had always been lost to him, and he still had Gran; she was remarkably spry for a woman in her eighties. No, Neville had never lost on a scale to equal Hermione. She had lost her friends and mentors, her parents, Ginny and Harry. She had lost Ron. She had even had to leave the tatters of her life and her country.
Hermione turned away as Neville looked at her. She knew what he was thinking, knew he would be realising that she had never let go, knew he pitied her. Surprisingly she didn't mind. This was Neville; he would know what the heart ache felt like, he had been there too, in that dark place that could be hidden, buried away in the corner of your unconscious, almost forgotten, until some sight, a scent, or a fragment of song, brought it sneaking from its cave, as powerful as ever and ready to engulf you.
They said that time healed all wounds; that you just lived through each day at a time and it got easier, until eventually it went away completely. Hermione knew better. There were some wounds that were etched so deeply on the soul, that so scarred the spirit, that one never recovered, but was left ever aching and vulnerable to the slightest prod. No amount of happy moments could fill that hole, or replace what was lost.
She was only twenty-six, but Hermione knew that some part of her life was over. Some part of her was dead. Even if Harry or her parents had lived, even if she had not been the sole witness of that awful hour, she knew that she would never truly love again, her heart had been Ron's and, with the exception of the small part she kept for April and her old friends who survived, like Neville, he had taken it with him into the next place, or left it to freeze in the endless winter of his absence.
Hermione moved about the kitchen, putting on the kettle, taking out some dried fruit and cheese to put on a tray- impulsively opening a bottle of red and dusting off a second wine glass. She carried it all through to the low wooden table in the living room. "I was going to offer you coffee, but would you say no to a glass of wine?" She so rarely had company.
"A glass of wine sounds perfect. What do you have here? Ah, a French pinot noir. May I do the honours?" At her nod, he deftly twisted the screw cap- a surprising addition considering that screw caps had not yet really taken off outside of New Zealand and Australia; the English and European connoisseurs were proving somewhat intractable over the break with tradition- and poured a small amount to taste, which he did expertly. Hermione watched, surprised, she had not really expected Neville, even this newly stylish model, to be an authority on wine. Some things definitely had changed in the years they'd been apart.
"Lovely." He proceeded to pour a generous amount into both glasses, handed hers across and came round to sit next to her on the couch. For a moment there was a surprisingly comfortable silence.
"So you know about me now. Live here, work at the library, and, obviously, look after April… What's your life been like the last five years?" She took a sip of wine and glanced up at him from under her bangs- she had let her hair down once she got home. Neville noticed it was as long and soft looking as ever. Though she never had managed to tame her curls.
"Oh, you know, OK." What to say? How did you tell someone the last five years of your life?
"You can do better than that Neville. Start at the beginning… what did you and your Grandmother do after you left me with April?" As always, Hermione's intuition for another's thoughts had taken her right to the heart of the issue. Neville had never understood why some people thought she was book absorbed and unconscious of those around her- Hermione had always been one of the most insightful and caring people he had known.
He took her advice. "Well after I left you, I returned to England only long enough to pack up some of our valuables, which were few enough- and the things we couldn't bear to leave behind- and then Grandmother and I took a commercial port key to America. We went to New York- it seemed appropriate somehow, to start our new life there. I got a job in a local magical artefact importer's- just low warehouse labour you understand, but it was a start- and we rented a small flat- we had very little in the way of money, most of my grandmother's savings had gone into my parents' care over the years. Within a couple of months, I was promoted to clerical work, my manager told me that he had noticed I was far more dedicated and serious than the other young men I worked with, which was true- he just never knew why.
"We were getting along OK. Somewhat lonely; Gran was on her own a lot of the time and I found it difficult to relate to the guys at work- they were mostly interested in their girlfriends, or lack of them. The more serious were thinking about whether to keep going with their education or whether to invest in a house. They had no idea what was going on back home and I found it hard to talk to them about it- they couldn't relate, and I found it difficult to relate to their concerns, they seemed so simplistic when I was worrying about whether my remaining friends would survive. Mourning my parents and the others who hadn't. Imagining a million ways to get rid of the Dark Lord and his cronies.
"One Sunday- I worked six days a week- I had taken Gran out to lunch. It was a rare treat, I had received a bonus that week and we decided to splash out. I suppose we had been in America about four or five months at that point-. Anyway, while we were eating, my Gran was looking around the restaurant and suddenly she stood up and cried out 'Harriet!' Well naturally I had no idea what was going on, but then another elderly woman stood up from a small cluster of them at a table on the far side of the room and called out "Jeanie? Is that you? Little Jeanie?" And they rushed across the room toward each other and started embracing.
"It turned out that Harriet Edmunds, or Harriet Pike- as she had been when Gran knew her, had been the best of friends with my Gran when they were in the same year at Hogwarts together- in Gryffindor House. They lost contact when Harriet moved to America with her husband about fifty years ago. It was wonderful for my grandmother of course- within a week she had been absorbed into a bevy of witches of her own age, which gave her something to do while I was at work. Before long she and Harriet had become close friends again and I began to hear a lot about Harriet's son Alex.
"It seemed he had been born to her late in life, when she and her husband had almost given up hope of a child. Unfortunately their great joy was marred because he had been born a squib-" He felt Hermione stir beside him- "I understand your feelings Hermione, but this was several decades ago and even in America squibs are regarded as being, at best, less fortunate than other wizarding folk.
" Anyway, to explain I suppose I should describe the American wizarding community somewhat: While it is still a secret from muggles, the wizards themselves have decided it is to their benefit to understand muggle society. Therefore, young witches and wizards grow up learning about muggle ways and as adults they often become far more involved in muggle society than happens here or in England. Wizards will even take up muggle professions if they discover an aptitude for them- the private business world is especially popular and many wizards have become quite wealthy working for muggles. Certainly, your average wizard is far more comfortable negotiating his way around muggle society than here. In many ways, therefore, it was easier for young Alex, lacking magic, to grow up in that world. He knew he could have a productive, meaningful life, even with his handicap.
"As a teenager, he asked to be sent to a muggle school, where he specialised in maths, accounting and humanist subjects- no doubt you know what I am talking about. He attained excellent grades and proceeded to study business at a muggle university, taking several papers in psychology- which was his pet interest- on the side. When he graduated he joined a large business firm and swiftly worked his way up the ranks.
"When I met him he was about to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday, was earning nearly a million dollars a year and had recently got engaged to the daughter of the company he worked for, which pretty much guaranteed him a seat on the board. For a wizard with his inauspicious start in life, he had done very well for himself. Yet, despite all logic, he had never forgotten his roots.
"Even before he met my Gran and I, he had been watching events in England with concern- I suppose he saw, when many missed it, what was in the wind for squibs and muggle-born folk at home. When we finally met, he was vastly interested in what I had to tell him. I liked him immediately of course, he was everything I was not and yet seemed to have no conceit- he was a fabulous listener, and had a maturity beyond his years. It was not many meetings before I found myself spilling the whole story to him: about the Dark Lord's return and the loss of my parents, Harry, Ron and Ginny, the other deaths, Dumbledore and even Cedric Diggory. The fear and the constant heart ache. You leaving. Fleeing myself, and my fears for my friends. By this point I was crying- fortunately we were at his flat- his muggle fiancée Liz was there also- and not in public. I began to ramble on about my parents and Harry's parents and the first rise of the Dark Lord.
"And then Alex did something amazing. He began to talk to me and encourage me to tell specific parts of my story- the parts which were the most painful. After a couple of hours I felt far better than I had in a long time. He then told me that he had trained in the muggle medicine of the mind known as psychiatry, and that he believed that if I would allow him to help me, together we might cure many of hurts that he called 'scars on my unconscious'.
"I was sceptical of course. I doubted that any experimental human medicine could cure me of the horrors I held inside, but by then we had become friends and I could see this was something that meant a lot to him, so I let him try. We had therapy sessions once a fortnight over the next few months and, gradually, I came to notice a change in myself. It became far easier for me to use my magic, and my spells worked far more often than they had in the past. Also, my memory seemed to improve somewhat. When I finally mentioned these changes to Alex, he said that he had suspected that something of the sort would happen. The reason I had been having problems all along, he believed, was not natural ineptitude, but my unconscious suppressing my ability to do magic because I had been scarred early on by learning what had happened to my parents and had, in some way, become unconsciously afraid of my own powers and existence as a wizard. Naturally, he said, this suppression of my abilities would increase at times when I felt stressed or afraid."
Hermione breathed in deeply and Neville felt a sigh leaving her body. He wondered if perhaps she was reasoning this out for herself, weighing the likelihoods and deciding whether to believe him. Evidently she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, because she smiled up at him with real warmth. Neville felt a small heat kindle into existence somewhere in the region of his heart. It meant a lot that Hermione believed him. That she had smiled at him like that.
"So-" he continued, "Alex had cured me- so to speak- and then he changed my life again. During all this time, Tom Riddle had been quietly consolidating his power in England and now Alex told me that his studies of Riddle- studies I was not aware of him even conducting- had led him to the same supposition as me- that Tom Riddle was really the Dark Lord- Voldemort- in disguise. Further to this, he told me that he had decided to fund and head an organisation, to assist the exiles of the English wizarding community and discredit Riddle, displacing him from power, if it could not rid the world of him entirely. A sort of international Order of the Phoenix if you will. He had no name for this organisation as of yet. It was I who suggested the 'DA'. Of course he understood the reference- I had told him of Harry's group many times- and thought it a most humorous assignment.
"But the most astonishing part of it all was that he wanted me to head the European arm of the organisation. I was to remain under his tutelage in America, where he would begin, and then, when the time was right, initiate the next stage over here. So I resigned from my job and went to work for him as his personal assistant. I learned muggle business and how to dress and act in their society and watched the extraordinary growth of the DA under Alex. I even picked up a basis in European and Asian languages and international negotiation as Alex insisted I be present at all his meetings, muggle and magical.
"At the end of a couple of years, Alex told me that the organisation was well established in America and ready to branch out. He paid for Gran to live in an apartment near the one he rented for his mother, so that I would not have to worry about her while I was away. And then I came over here and set to work.
"In the twenty months since, Alex has funded and guided me as I created the European branch of the DA. Several months ago he started his own business in muggle computer software and invited me to be a partner in the firm. I now manage the European branch of that also. It's really taken off. For the first time in my life, I'm independently wealthy and I'm also helping to dethrone Riddle. I owe it all to Alex. He's the most amazing person. I wish you could meet him- I know you would like each other."
Hermione stared up at Neville. She noted somewhat sadly that his face was lit with the same fervour that used to appear whenever he talked of Harry's exploits. This Alex, whatever he was, had created miracles for Neville. He was no longer the nervy, incompetent young man he had been. He was successful and charming, and doing something to change the reality that they lived in, fulfilling himself. Momentarily she felt a stab of envy- why had Neville gained all this when the rest of them had been so unlucky. Ron, Harry and Ginny dead, herself a lonely exile, working at a dead end job in the library. They had all had such potential, such dreams! What was the justice that had taken all that from them before they had a chance to use it?
Immediately she felt shame. This was Neville- her friend. And he was doing something that so few- including herself- had the courage to do. She remembered the night he had stood up to the three of them leaving the common room- she had stunned him and left him unconscious on the floor. She wondered if he still remembered that, or felt any of the guilt that she did from that night.
He was looking down at her with a question in his brown eyes and she wondered if he could sense her thoughts in any way. "Neville-" she said, "that's wonderful. I'm so happy for you. And so proud." She couldn't keep the wobble from her speech, "You're doing what we all wanted to do."
And he kept looking at her, reading her face, and then he said the words that would change her life, in the same way that Alex had changed his, though at the time neither of them recognised it for a miracle. "Hermione… Will you join me? Will you help me?"