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26. Neville's Secret

The next day, she struggled to wake up out of the deepest sleep she'd had in ages. It must've been a good three hours of intermittent sobbing before she'd finally fallen asleep, and now she was headachy and puffy-eyed.

"Ugh," she groaned, sitting up and pulling the bedcurtains open. Rubbing at her pounding head, it took her a moment to notice the little wide-eyed creature standing before her and staring.

"Ah!" Callie yelped.

"Good day, Mistress Warbeck!" Rosewater the house-elf greeted cheerfully.

"Bloody hell, you startled me!" Callie said. "What're you doing here?"

"Master Snape ordered me to bring you brunch, ma'am." Rosewater grabbed up a silver platter of food and held it out to her. "And to see to it your plate was clean before I returned to the kitchens."

"Brunch?" Callie repeated, looking down at the tray. Eggs, sausages, ham, porridge, toast, sandwiches, crisps, melon slices, pumpkin juice, tea, coffee, and biscuits. "You expect me to eat all this?" Callie asked incredulously.

"Master Snape insists, ma'am."

Callie rolled her eyes. "Give it here," she said. Rosewater handed her the tray and Callie scarfed down as much as she could. A good amount of food remained when she simply refused to have another bite, and she had to do a lot of convincing to get the house-elf to return to the kitchens with the tray half-full.

"Master Snape is going to be angry with Rosewater, ma'am," the elf cried, trembling in fear.

"I'll explain to Master Snape," Callie said. "Mistress Warbeck has overruled him."

"Mistress Warbeck is friendly and pleasant, ma'am. Master Snape terrifies Rosewater."

"Terrifies a lot of people, he does," Callie replied. "But don't worry, I promise he won't bother you."

Rosewater bowed her head dismally and made her way out with the tray, looking as though she were heading off to her own execution. Callie got up out of bed and showered, wondering how she could kill time until dinner. It was only four o' clock in the afternoon, and all of her friends were in class at the moment.

Ten minutes later she found herself in the hospital wing, standing before Madam Pomfrey. "I wanted to thank you, ma'am, for your help with the sleeping draught. I don't think I'll be needing it anymore, but it was a real life-saver for a while."

Smiling down at the girl, Pomfrey said, "Well, I'm just happy to know that you've kicked the habit. Sleeping potions can become quite addicting, when used in excess."

"Yes, ma'am," Callie replied. Then, after a moment, "I... nicked a bottle yesterday, ma'am. I turned it into Professor Snape last night."

"Yes, he told me." She didn't look angry or disappointed, but understanding. "I appreciate your honesty, nonetheless."

"I was wondering if there was some way I could pay you back," Callie said. "Any way I could help out around the hospital wing, perhaps?"

Callie spent the next two hours making beds, mopping the floor, restocking the supply closet. Any little thing to make Madam Pomfrey's job a bit easier and give the house-elves a break. The matron dismissed her at dinnertime, and she made her way off to the Great Hall. Nodding to Snape so he'd know she'd shown up, she joined her friends at the Gryffindor table.

"Warbeck!" Fred Weasley greeted happily. "Now this is my real present. Welcome back, love!"

"Present?" she said, taking a slice of roast beef.

"It's our birthday," George explained. "Seventeenth."

"Happy birthday," she said. "I don't have a gift, but now that you're of age, I know where you can go to get a bottle of Firewhisky."

"How's about a kiss instead?" Fred said, touching his cheek. "Right here."

Rolling her eyes, she leaned over to give him a peck. Hermione caught her eye, and the Gryffindor girl said, "You're looking... better."

With a sheepish look, Callie said, "I'm sorry I was such a bitch."

Hermione gave her a small smile. "It's all right. I understand."

"Still friends?" Callie asked.

"'Course. After all, I need someone to help me throw punches at Malfoy every once in a while."

Chuckling, the Slytherin asked, "Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

"Oh, better."

Callie scanned the table, and asked, "Where's Neville?"

Hermione shrugged. "Said he didn't feel much like eating," she said. "Went for a walk around the grounds."

He hadn't shown up by the time Callie was finished eating. She wanted to talk to him, and tell him that things were going to be better from now on. And to offer an apology; of all people, he'd been the least deserving and probably gotten the worst of her foul mood the last two months.

Heading out to the grounds, she wandered around until she spotted him looking out over an empty paddock near the edge of the woods.

"Hey," she said, coming up behind him.

He spun around, a faint smile curling his lip before his face went stoic. "Hey," he replied.

The two stood in awkward silence for a moment, neither quite meeting the other one's eye.

"So..." Callie began "...how've you been?"

He shrugged. "Same old, I guess." After a pause, "How are you?"

Rather than provide her usual response of fine when asked that question, she decided to be honest. "Not good," she said. "Not yet. But..." she shrugged "...suppose I'll get there one day."

Her gave her a small smile, then said, "I can go if you want me to."

"No," she replied, shaking her head. "I actually came here to find you." He met her eye and waited for her to say something.

"Neville... I'm really, really sorry."

"For what?" he asked.

"The way I treated you. It wasn't your fault, you didn't do anything wrong. It's just... for once, I just wanted to be alone."

"I get that."

"But I don't anymore. I just don't wanna talk about it. Not yet."

He nodded in understanding. "Okay," he said.

She came to stand beside him at the paddock, setting her foot up on one of the boards and resting her arms on top.

After a while, Neville spoke up. "I know you don't wanna talk about it, and you don't have to," he said. "But I want you to know that I'm sorry I couldn't be there, at the funeral, I mean. I wanted to be there."

"It's all right. I wasn't very... talkative that day anyway." They stood gazing over the empty enclosure for some time, and then Callie mused, "Wonder what Hagrid's going to fill this thing with. Acromantulas maybe, perhaps a basilisk? Something just as cute and cuddly as the skrewts, I'm sure."

"No," Neville said, "they've always kept the thestrals in here."

"Thestrals?" she said, never having heard the word before.

"That's what they're called," he replied.

"But what are they?"

He eyed her and said, "They're... kind of like horses, I guess." Pointing into the paddock, he added, "'Cept for the wings."

"What are you pointing at?" Callie asked, her brow furrowed.

He stared at her, and then a look of realization crossed his face. "Oh," he said, "you can't see them."

"See what?" She started to worry she had some sort of selective blindness.

"Thestrals," he said. "They're only visible to people who've seen someone die. They look like... skinny black horses with big wings."

Callie followed his gaze, somewhat unsettled by the fact that she couldn't see the mysterious animals even though they were, apparently, right in front of her face. Then his words struck her, and she asked, "You've seen someone die?"

"Yeah, my granddad," he said, "when I was four. Spell backfire."

"Oh," Callie said. "I'm sorry. Thought maybe it was your-" But she cut herself off.

"What?" he asked when she didn't go on.

How was it fair to bring up the subject of his parents when she had just told him she didn't want to talk about her dad? Hesitating, she said, "I... thought it might have been one of your parents."

"My p-" he said, looking puzzled. "My parents aren't dead."

Callie did a double take. "But..." she said, "I thought..."

He suddenly looked like he'd said something he shouldn't have, turning his eyes away from her.

"They're alive?" Callie asked.

He was so unsettled now, his hands were shaking. Stepping away from her, he stuttered, "I shouldn't have- I didn't- Never mind."

But she had to know now. "Neville," she said, "you don't have to hide anything from me. The way you've talked about them, I thought... I thought they were dead."

He didn't respond, and he still couldn't look at her.

"But if not, then... what happened to them? Why do you live with your gran?"

He turned away from her, as if hiding himself. She thought he might refuse to explain, and if so, she wouldn't pry. But she wanted to know this about him; it was the one thing he'd never opened up to her about.

Turning back to her, but keeping his eyes on the ground, he said, "My parents are in St. Mungo's Hospital. Have been ever since since I was one."

Callie took that in and asked, "Why?"

He swallowed, his face a mixture of sadness and... embarrassment? Shame?

"After the war," he explained, "a group of Death Eaters captured them and... tortured them for information about You Know Who. What had happened, where he'd gone. They had no idea, nobody did. But the Death Eaters didn't let up." He paused before going on. "They Cruciated Mum and Dad for hours, 'til something in them just... snapped."

Bloody hell. Now it made sense why he'd reacted so strongly to her joke about the Cruciatus Curse all those months ago.

"They were never right again after that," he went on, "you know, up here." He gestured to his head. "They can't live on their own, they don't even know who they are or where they are." He paused. "They don't know who I am either."

Callie's heart broke for the boy. Christ, losing her father was torturous. But the thought of seeing him incapacitated, a shell of his former self, not even able to recognize who she was?

"Neville," she said softly, "I'm so sorry."

He shrugged one shoulder in a sad sort of way. "Least they're alive, I guess."

Yes, but at what cost?

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" she asked.

"I haven't told anyone. No one else knows. I just didn't want..." He trailed off.

"Everybody looking at you weird?" She certainly knew all about that.

"Yeah. Callie, please don't tell anyone. Not Hermione, or Harry, or anyone. I don't wanna deal with everyone knowing."

"I'm not going to tell anyone. You know me better than that."

He'd gone through that whole explanation without meeting her eye once. She approached him, taking his face in her hand and making him look at her, then repeated in a whisper, "I'm sorry."

Looking down at her, he said, "I'm sorry too."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close. Hesitantly, he returned the embrace, setting his hands on her back. She'd never realized just how good, how comforting, such a common act as hugging could feel. But between Snape the previous night, and Neville now, she was starting to appreciate it more.

"Life sucks," she said after a while.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "Yeah... it really does sometimes."

But now that she was back, and his secret was out, at least they didn't have to suffer in silence anymore.