Chapter 34: No More Ways to Pose
Neville felt the smell of grass fills his nostrils as his body, along with that of a lifeless Cedric, slammed into the ground just beyond the entrance to the maze. The Boy Who Lived landed prone almost over his dead classmate, and it was at that moment that Neville finally let all the emotion burst from him like a damn, the trauma of the hellish ordeal he had just been through spilling out.
Weeping bitterly, he remained bent over Cedric, clutching him, shielding him with his own body even though it was all over, they had gotten away, there was no one to fight.
That didn't stop Neville from trying, however, as he thrashed and threw off the reaching hands and arms of the faculty and Tournament staff now swarming him, trying to help him.
"No! - No! He told me to bring his body back! He told me to bring….." he couldn't finish, breaking down, though the fight in his body remained.
At least until he felt Dumbledore kneeling at his side. "Neville…. Neville…. what happened?"
"He's back!" Neville choked out through tears, through lingering terror. "Voldemort's back!"
That was when Dumbledore looked down and clearly saw how Cedric wasn't moving. The Headmaster had turned pale and Neville was chilled to realize: if Dumbledore appeared this openly scared…. running scared…..
Right behind him, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, had also spotted Cedric's body and turned ghastly pale. "Tell everyone to stay in their seats!" he hollered. Then, softer, to an aide: "A boy's just been killed…"
Up high in the stands, someone screamed – feminine.
Rustling and shouts now went up from the circle of people assembled on the green, cloaks swirling as men and women were shoved aside by a disheveled, hysterical Amos Diggory.
"Let me through…. Let me through!" The moment Amos broke through the ring, he pulled up short. Neville had never before seen a person's face shatter so completely, but he could only imagine it was naturally commensurate to what was no greater grief. No greater grief, than that of losing a child.
"That's my SON! That's my boy!" Amos was howling. He threw himself down at Cedric's side almost in place of Neville, even as Neville was still being hauled to his feet and dragged a short distance away. The Boy Who Lived didn't resist now; he hadn't the energy. Oddly, from the way people were encircling him, flanking him, he felt more like a prisoner under heavy guard rather than a survivor in need of protection.
A few bigwig men in traditional wizard's dress, pointy hats and all, had now descended on Amos, trying to speak soothingly to the man, but the poor father was inconsolable, moaning 'No!' and writhing as though in physical pain.
Quite sharply, Neville felt a firm hand clap on his shoulder, then a gruff voice snarl in his ear:
"Longbottom. Come with me." Neville let the aging Auror in Mad-Eye Moody lead him away from the scene.
Well, more like drag him away, and in the hard grip of a stony Mad-Eye, Neville couldn't shake the sense that he truly felt like a prisoner now. Moody was almost manhandling him, practically wrestling him into the tiny back office of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. It was little bigger than a broom cupboard, and it struck Neville how he had only been in here once before. Lockhart had kept it far more ostentatious than this, mostly with pictures of himself, which hadn't exactly helped the atmosphere when he and Ron had needed to practically take their own teacher prisoner to get him to do the right thing.
This time, however, Neville felt like he was the prisoner instead of the one… imprisoning. But he couldn't put his finger on why.
As soon as they were clear of the threshold, Moody let go of him, hobbling with his walking stick over to the back wall, which was now almost covered with a filing system of drawers. Neville couldn't remember whether the cabinetry had been there when the office belonged to Lockhart, or even Lupin.
"What was it like?" Moody demanded abruptly.
Neville blinked, thrown. "Sorry?"
Moody was busying himself over at the cabinets, rummaging around almost frantically for something. "What was it like, boy? What was it like? To stand in His presence?"
"I…. I dunno. He…. he rose from the cauldron; after that, Wormtail took my blood – my mother's blood…."
"Were there others? In the graveyard, were there others?!"
"Yes, all cloaked, faces hidden, and…" Neville suddenly did an auditory double take, frowning. "Hang on…. Professor: I never told you I was in a graveyard."
Back to him, Moody barely took a beat to pause, much less freeze. When his round head turned on its thick neck, rotating with an almost creepy slowness similar to that of his one, glass eye, Neville felt goosebumps alight on his flesh. Alarm bells were going off in his head, much as they had in the first few seconds he had landed in the cemetery with Cedric, before everything went haywire. Get out of there, his instinct was telling him. Neville, get out of there!
"Fine creatures, dragons," Moody rumbled sneeringly. He peered closer, smile close to deranged and leering, even as he continued to clop about the room throughout much of what he said next, still casting about for whatever it was he was searching for. "Do you really think that miserable oaf would have led you into the Forest if I hadn't suggested it?" Neville shook his head, too stunned and baffled to process right away. "Do you think Luna Lovegood, the batty little whore, the St. Mungo's Patient Walking Free, wouldn't have handed you that jar of gillyweed if I hadn't whispered in her ear the book and plant that would lead her straight to it?!"
Neville barely had enough room left to feel his blood simmer at Moody saying such vile things about sweet Luna like that, for it was now all starting to descend on him with horrifying clarity. He gaped, and his voice now came out in a disbelieving yelp, though now he understood how it was true, all too true….
"It…. it was you! It was you from the beginning! You put my name into that Goblet of Fire!"
Moody rounded on Neville with a snap, sharply enough that the lad could see how an Auror was now brandishing a wand at him.
Run…. Run!
Except…. was he an Auror, really? As Neville watched in horror, Moody's form began to ripple, melt, like the sun was peeling the man's very skin off of him and turning him into gelatinous goo.
"You were supposed to die any number of times, you stupid, pathetic waste! Any of the Tasks would have done, the graveyard. But no, you had to…. Very well. I'll finish the job! Avad -!"
The closet door unexpectedly blasted back off its hinges, and Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape swept into the room, followed by several armed wizards. Moody, or whoever was pretending to be Moody, fired off only one shot and Neville flung himself out of the way as the men dashed forward and jumped his would-be assailant. Dumbledore actually had his wand to the blighter's throat.
"You are to answer my questions with either a Yes or No!" and Dumbledore's low, normally mild timbre now rang like thunder. "Are you Alastor Moody?" Brief silence as the figure in the Headmaster's grasp struggled defiantly. "Answer me!"
"Here, Headmaster, let me…." And with multiple men holding Not-Moody down, Snape forced the imposter's mouth open and jammed a potion down his throat. There was much gargling and gagging, but Not-Moody was made to swallow.
"I'll ask again: are you Alastor Moody?"
"Nooooo….." The growl held the tone of a child trying to think of a lie but unable and forced to cop to the truth instead.
"Is he in this room? Is he in this room?!" Dumbledore was clearly not playing, damn near throttling the interloper now.
Not-Moody's eye swiveled in the direction of a chest off to one side, the Veritaserum clearly taking such a hold that even the man's body now betrayed him, unable to tell a lie. The Aurors forced open the chest, to reveal that the real Moody had been locked in its magical depths for the better part of a year.
As the group all watched, the effects of what Neville understood could only have been Polyjuice Potion began to wear off. Melt away, to reveal a thinner man with dark hair and an insane grin on his lips. The man who had impersonated Moody flicked his tongue out, hissing like an actual serpent. If he was trying to emulate the master he served, it was a poor imitation – the impression of a poseur.
"Barty Crouch Jr.," Dumbledore murmured in menacing, low tones. He tssked, almost regretfully, waving the Aurors on. "Take him to Azkaban!"
"You're too late!" Crouch Jr. jeered, even while hauled to his feet and led away. "The boy is linked to the Dark Lord now! I finished the mission! I'll be welcomed back like a hero!" His voice echoed down the hall as he was frog-marched out of the castle.
Dumbledore sequestered a shaken Neville inside his office, where the Boy Who Had Survived Again told him everything: about the graveyard, Cedric's death, Voldemort's resurrection.
When he got to the part where his and Riddle's wands seemed to link, Dumbledore sat back and he appeared truly amazed.
"Priori Incantatem….." At least, that was what Neville thought he heard him mumble. The old man turned back to their world's last hope slowly. "Sooner or later, Neville, we'll all have to make the choice between what is right…. and what is easy."
He only left his pupil with that little spoken-word riddling, not bothering to explain the Latin phrase he had almost reverently uttered. Neville could do nothing but return to his dormitory, then board the Hogwarts Express for home a few weeks later, the foreboding that comes after the final loss of innocence hanging over him like a permanent cloud.