-
Oh my God, I killed Harry Potter!
---
It wasn't supposed to happen like this; that was all Neville could think as he stared at the surface of the Great Lake. He turned away, unable to bear the silence that had fallen, the eyes that, though he knew were directed at the Lake, seemed also directed silently, accusingly at him.
"I...killed Harry Potter..." He whispered the words, and suddenly it seemed so much more real, somehow. The knowledge hit him like a blow to the stomach, bringing tears to his eyes and a leaden weight to his gut, it suddenly seemed so much harder to breathe.
"Oh my God. I killed Harry Potter..." Neville was barely conscious of the screams that erupted in the stands around him, his dazed mind attributed the chaos to the mass realisation of what his actions had wrought. The death of their saviour.
"I killed...Harry Potter..." Dimly Neville heard three booming knocks, as though some great storm Deity banged its approval or disapprobation on the gathered clouds. He felt himself sinking, sinking into darkness as the enormity of the situation sank into him. However indirectly, he had killed The-Boy-Who-Lived.
Neville fainted.
---
Some indeterminate time later he woke, or thought he did, but he also though he'd heard Harry's voice, and that was impossible. Harry was dead, dead by his well-meaning hands, or as good as. Was it possible to wake in a dream? He thought it must be, for he could hear Harry's voice again, distant, or maybe just quiet. It would be fitting if he chose to haunt his murderer...
Neville opened his eyes to what looked like the ceiling of Hogwarts Hospital Wing. He was either dreaming or awake, too groggy yet to tell the difference clearly, too numb and in shock to think clearly. All he knew was that Harry was dead, and how he wished it wasn't true. Therefore, if Harry seemed to still be alive, it had to be a dream; or insanity on his part. He wasn't entirely sure which, if either, would be preferable. Neither did he care, not particularly, not if it meant he could happily deny that which he knew to be the horrid truth; he had killed the saviour of the Wizarding world.
He had done that which Voldemort had failed to do time and time again.
Would that, in the cold, cruel, real world, make him a Dark Lord to rival Voldemort?
---
Neville Longbottom, son of Frank and Alice Longbottom, had never been particularly outstanding at anything except Herbology. He was, as the phrase went, scared of his own shadow, and it had used up what little confidence he had to stand up to Harry, Ron and Hermione in their first year. The petrificus totalis that Hermione had promptly cast on him had, despite Dumbledore's approval of his actions, convinced him that it just wasn't worth it.
Some days, when he was feeling pretty depressed, or Snape had been particularly harsh - and the consequent explosion of his potion particularly messy - Neville bitterly wondered why the Sorting Hat had chosen to place him in Gryffindor. He had none of the qualities of a Gryffindor, no pride, no courage, and he certainly wasn't gifted in the magic department. Then again, where else could he have gone? He wouldn't have lasted two seconds in Slytherin, never mind two minutes, and he certainly didn't have the brains or studious inclination of a Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff, well, maybe he would have fitted in there, but how loyal had he been when standing up against his housemates? How loyal was he to not even stand with them against Malfoy and the other Slytherins?
No, Neville was pretty certain that the only reason he was in Gryffindor was because there was nowhere else to put him without it being glaringly obvious that he didn't belong there. Sure, he didn't belong in Gryffindor either, but he was able to hide in the shadows of the others, let their exuberant Gryffindor-ishness cloak him in his shroud of useless indifference. He was the forgotten Gryffindor, the overlooked one - except by Malfoy and his goons of course - and whilst he might not be happy there, he was not blindingly unhappy, and he was not subject to the constant reminders of his gran that he wasn't his parents, which had to be a good thing.
His parents...another Albatross around his neck. They were both insane, driven that way by the over-application of the Cruciatus curse by Belatrix and her husband, Rodolphus Lestrange. Worst of all, it wasn't a frothing-at-the-mouth insanity, but a quieter, more insidious insanity that meant neither of them recognised him, and his mother thought her gifts of bubblegum wrappers were priceless. To him they were, although his gran thought otherwise.
There were days, uncharitable days, when Neville wished the Death Eaters had finished the job properly, rather than condemning both his parents and him to a never-ending hell. Inevitably, on those days, his thoughts turned darker and he wondered why he didn't just end it all; but he knew the answer. He was a coward.
In truth, Neville's lack of self-confidence and self-worth had always seen him teetering on the brink of either madness or suicide. But somehow he'd always managed to numb himself, to selectively forget the things he found to painful to deal with, to live in the moment, not thinking about the future until he had to, definitely not thinking about the past. He felt his way through life like a blind man, always cautious of bumps in the road that he wouldn't see until he fell over them, always aware that one day, inevitably, he would take a wrong turn, and would plummet over a cliff that he had refused to acknowledge, consciously, was there.
And now...now he was in that free-fall, and it was liberating.
---
Although he was dreaming, or hallucinating maybe - he reckoned the former simply because everyone was acting as though Harry wasn't dead, was in fact really there and not just a product of his regrets - Neville didn't want to stop. He'd seen his worst nightmare come true, and if he could spend the rest of his life in the delusion that it had just been a dream, then he would be content.
For the first time in years he felt free, felt his own person, aware of his strengths and weaknesses, aware that, when necessary, he could be of value. He had looked back on the events of his previous years at Hogwarts, and had concluded that, if he was honest, if the same, or similar situations arose, he did know the curses and counter-curses to hold his own in a fight. It had been an almost frightening realisation, that yes, he too had the magical ability that his housemates had always seemed to realise they had. More frightening was the realisation that he had always had it, but never known.
Scared of his own shadow...truly, he had been scared of his own magic. How had such a thing happened? But that wasn't the question that mattered. The question that mattered was, what would he now do with that magic? This was, after all, a hallucination, where he didn't have the stain of killing Harry Potter on his conscience. It didn't matter what he did with himself; he could join Voldemort, he could become a spy - for one side or the other, or both - he could even become a vigilante and take it upon himself to revenge his parents. But...did he want any of that?
No, he realised. He had once hidden in the shadow of his housemates because he believed he had no choice, that he couldn't make his own light shine bright enough to join theirs, to stand out, individual, and not become lost in the crowd. Now he would settle back into those shadows because he wanted to, because he realised that Gryffindor hadn't been the last choice of the Sorting Hat because he wouldn't fit anywhere else. He had patience - it was essential in Herbology - and a desire to be useful that wasn't quite ambition, but was close. He was loyal and steadfast, he'd never turned against Harry, unlike Ron, whose fickle friendship was legend. He thirsted for knowledge, albeit in a single field - Herbology again - and not even Hermione Granger could best him in that field.
He had been placed in Gryffindor because he was needed there, just as Hermione - a Ravenclaw if ever there was one - had been placed there. Harry Potter had chosen Gryffindor - Neville had seen the Slytherin side to The-Boy-Who-Lived and knew he could very well have gone to Slytherin unless he'd told the Hat otherwise - and so the Hat had placed others in whom it sensed valuable allies into the same house.
For perhaps the first time in his life he realised that someone, something, had had faith in him; him, Neville Longbottom.
It was an epiphany, one sorely overdue. For the first time Neville felt like maybe, just maybe, he could live up to the expectations people had of him, could live up to being the son of Frank and Alice Longbottom, Aurors whom people still spoke of with an awe usually only reserved for the Potters - Harry's parents. After all, they too had defied Voldemort three times.
---
Harry Potter, in the Hospital Wing as a formality - really, the Grindylows hadn't scratched him that much, although the bite on his calf had been rather deep and bleeding rather profusely once he was out of the water - watched Neville Longbottom from where he sat on a hospital bed off to the side. His housemate had, apparently, fainted for some reason shortly after the start of the second task, and had only just come round when he himself had been firmly ushered into the Hospital Wing by Professor Moody.
Arguing with Madame Pomphrey had, as usual, failed to allow him to escape her attentions, and so, for the last hour and a half, he'd been perched on the bed watching Neville, who didn't seem to be aware of his presence.
Quite what was going through his housemate's head, Harry wasn't sure, but Neville's expressions, insofar as Harry could see and tentatively identify them, had seemed to range from horror to determination, passing through disgust and sudden realisation.
Harry liked Neville, although not, perhaps for the reasons that others might have assumed. Neville knew, like him, the burdens of having to live up to the unreasonable expectations of others - true, on a smaller scale, he wasn't expected to off Voldemort for a start - but Neville also got to hide in the crowd. What Harry wouldn't give to be able to experience that anonimity, even once... But he also knew that he could count on Neville in a pinch.
He broke off from that train of thought with a brisk shake of his head and a calculated swing of his aching calf against the side of the bed. The sudden sharp pain - Madame Pomphrey had been most flustered to discover that she was out of the healing paste she needed - brought tears to his eyes, but it did the trick of snapping his maudlin thoughts back to the present.
Neville, at some point during his brief introspection, had gotten up off his bed and wandered over to stand in front of him. His expression was strange, a mix of sorrow and determination to say whatever it was he meant to say.
"I'm sorry I killed you." Of all the things he might have expected, Harry hadn't expected that. He gaped soundlessly, brain whirling in confusion. As far as he was aware he was still alive, and so far everyone seemed to agree, or at least, they had interacted with him as though he were alive, and he was sitting on a bed, which suggested he wasn't a ghost. So what was Neville talking about?
"Um...I'm dead?" Harry was aware that he was babbling in his confusion, but as he didn't have any other ideas at the moment he didn't try and stop himself. "I'm sure Madame Pomfrey would have mentioned if I was dead. Or Hermione...or Ron...or...or..." Neville seemed to be remarkably unfazed - and unconvinced - by his babbling, so Harry clamped his mouth shut, took a deep breath in through his nose, let it out again through his mouth, and quite firmly stated, "Neville, I'm not dead."
"I guess I still don't want to hear the truth." Neville muttered, somewhat sadly. It slowly began to dawn on Harry what might have happened.
"Neville, the gillyweed worked - I rescued Ron, and Fleur's sister, Gabrielle. Got attacked by Grindylows on the way back up," he flashed a grin at Neville, who was starting to look uncertain - he'd been unconscious whilst this was going on after all, so how could he be hallucinating such details? "If I was just a hallucination, then would I really be injured? Surely if you were hallucinating my survival then I would have come through everything unscathed? For all you knew the second task was just to dive to the bottom of the Great Lake, find an object, and then resurface - no risks whatsoever besides drowning." Harry was hopeful, from Neville's expression, that he was finally getting through to the other boy.
"You're...really alive?" Harry nodded enthusiastically to the tentative question and Neville's expression brightened considerably. In fact, it brightened so much that Harry fleetingly wondered whether Neville could actually be bi-polar. "You're really...alive..." Neville whispered again. "You're really alive!"
Anything else Neville - or Harry - might have said at that moment was cut off by three resounding bangs on the Hospital Wing doors, after which one creaked slowly open to admit a scowling Madame Pomfrey.
"I told Argus these doors needed looking at." She muttered irritably, looking even more formidable than usual. Harry didn't envy the caretaker the next time he crossed the path of the Mediwitch. He and Neville shared a look, both obviously thinking the same thing - how could such a crossing be engineered? - and they both burst out laughing.
"Well, I'm glad someone can find something funny about the situation." Madame Pomphrey huffed at them. "You, Mister Longbottom, seem to be healthy enough..." She flicked her wand at him, and nodded at whatever it told her. "You may return to your common room, where I've no doubt people will want an update of Mister Potter's condition. You may tell them," she said, the suggestion of a smile on her lips, "that it was touch and go for a while, but he should pull through just fine." Neville and Harry shared another, somewhat astounded look, and then began laughing again.
"Go on Neville," Harry encouraged when he got his breath back. "I'm sure I won't be long behind you, so you won't get too mauled by questions." Neville nodded and grinned, conscious that the epiphany he'd had whilst under the impression that Harry was dead, was just as valid now that he knew he was not.
Maybe it had taken four years and the belief that he'd murdered someone, but Neville knew who he was, and he was no longer going to let people like Malfoy walk all over him.
---
Maybe it would take a while for him to fully comfortable with his new perception of the world and himself, but one day, he was certain, Death Eaters would hear the name 'Neville Longbottom' and would tremble.
---
AN: heh, well, blame this on my housemate and her friend for sparking the whole 'what if Neville really had killed Harry?' question. This didn't quite turn out that way, since Harry turns out not to be dead, but I didn't really feel like starting another 'Harry's not there' epic whilst I'm still working on Corvine (and yes, I am still working on that; for all PoA should be short, it's very complex because of all the new characters and the subsequent dynamics going on in the arc).