The Visit
Alice had tried to talk Neville out of this. What use would it be for him to start digging into the past? The Memory Charm wasn't hindering him in any way anymore. He did well in his work and his forgetfulness had improved considerably.
Why take a barely tried new healing potion if it wasn't really necessary? In Auror training, Alice had learned a few things about the dangerous consequences magical instabilities could have. Quite a few dark curses had such effects. Memory Charms didn't count as dark magic but if the recipient's memory was completely wiped, that did affect his magic. Especially in someone as young as Neville had been back then.
Alice didn't want to imagine the state Neville must have been in so the Aurors would decide to take such a measure. He should never have been forced to witness something like that; it would have been her duty as mother to protect him. A duty she had failed.
She couldn't really blame him for not heeding her warning now.
Alice had expected that there would be unpleasant side effects but she had not thought that it would go wrong quite so badly. The potion was supposed to induce a sleep during which the memories were awakened. It should have been over after one night. Three nights had passed by now and Neville was still extremely ill. He suffered from high fever, vomiting and a strong headache that neither healing magic nor potion could make any better. The worst part of it all was his mental state however. Neville was suffering through hallucinations and something that might be terrifying memories, Alice didn't know. They didn't come from the first three years of his life. Most of the time, he didn't recognise her or his wife at all.
That must have been how he had been feeling during those long fifteen years, Alice thought.
Hannah walked into the living-room, her usually rosy face pale. There were dark lines under her eyes. Neither woman had slept much since Neville was ill. They couldn't leave him alone at night; one of them had to watch over him all the time. Francis and Deborah were staying with Hannah's best friend Susan Macmillan and her family.
"We really should take him to 's now," Hannah said. "It can't go on like this."
Alice sighed. Neville had explicitly told them that he didn't want to go to the hospital, not if there was any alternative.
"I had to give him more of the fever potion again," Hanna explained. "It didn't really work well anymore though." She swallowed hard. "If it doesn't get better, he might-" She stopped mid-sentence.
Alice knew what her daughter-in-law had wanted to say. Neville was so ill it might actually threaten his life. At least, they didn't know enough to be sure that this wouldn't happen. He had left an emergency Portkey and the recipe of the potion for this kind of situation.
"I'm not sure if they'll be able to do much though," Alice said. She wanted to spare Neville the humiliation of being in the hospital where he was working, seriously ill from a potion be had brewed himself. "If I have understood this correctly, no one other than Neville and Lestrange knows about this potion so far. I don't know if the recipe is enough for them to understand but I doubt it"
"That's not good," Hannah said. "Wonder why they didn't tell anyone else."
"Lestrange has always liked to keep his innovations secret as long as possible," Alice said. It wasn't hard to guess why. Knowledge was power.
"Still, a Healer should check on him. Maybe there's a simple way to help him and we just don't see it because we don't have the training," Hannah said. "Do you think one of the Healers would visit us here? Hestia Jones maybe?"
Hestia was the only Healer at 's whom Alice had actually trusted. After she had been allowed to leave the hospital, Hestia had visited her at home a few times. Maybe she'd help again.
"That's a good idea," Alice said. "Would you contact her?" She still didn't feel that the Healers would really take her seriously. Not after fifteen years as an insane patient there.
"Of course," Hannah said, stepping towards the mirror in the corner. It was used for communication with other witches and wizards who had access to this kind of thing. Hestia as a Healer was one of them of course.
"I'll go to Neville," Alice said.
She walked up the creaking stairs and knocked on Neville's door. Alice knew he wasn't going to answer but she still didn't want to walk into the bed room of her adult son without knocking.
Neville was lying in bed, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. There was a pained look on his face.
"Hello Neville," she said, not receiving a reply.
Alice was horrified by the effects of this potion. Before he had taken it, everything had been alright with him and now this. She couldn't get those nagging thoughts out of her head that it might not get better anymore, that she might lose him. There were so many things they had not had the chance to talk about yet.
Her heart was breaking at the thought that he had endured the same all through his childhood whenever he had visited her.
There bowl they had put beside his bed was full once again. Alice cast a quick vanishing charm to clean it up. Neville's eyes widened when he saw her wand.
"Don't hurt her, please don't hurt her. She's only a third-year," he muttered. "It's all my fault. It's all my fault." He almost shouted those words the second time.
"Neville, it's me, your mother. I'm not going to hurt anyone," Alice said kindly, hoping that he'd understand the tone if not the meaning of the words.
He looked at her. "Mum, you need to get away from here. It's not safe."
At least he knew who she was again, Alice thought slightly relieved.
"Don't worry, we're at home. Everything's alright. You've got fever, that's all."
"Please, drinking," Neville muttered.
Alice poured water into his cup and gave it to him. He drank avidly, the illness probably made him lose lots of water. Alice hoped he'd be able to keep the water down.
The flask with the rest of the Memory Potion was still standing on one of the shelves next to the Portkey and the handwritten recipe. It had a deep blue colour from the Medea's Leaf berries. Maybe Neville was allergic to this plant. Or he had made a mistake while brewing the potion. He had struggled with Potions in the past after all. If he hadn't used it successfully before, Alice would have believed that there was something wrong with the recipe but the other patient had obviously been freed of the charm upon him without any unpleasant side effects.
She took his temperature. 38.5 degrees. This wasn't extremely high but Hannah had given him the fever potion. Without it, the situation would probably be worse. The lower temperature didn't seem to bring any improvement with his hallucinations though. Neville started to talk about things Alice couldn't understand again. "No, not that! Please not that. You can't ask me to do that!"
Once again he seemed to be completely unaware of his mother's presence, a look of pure terror on his face. Alice asked herself if these were real memories and what horrible things he had been asked to do if they were.
Hannah walked into the room. "We're lucky. Hestia is home already and she'll come and have a look at him," she said, sitting down beside Neville and holding his hand. This seemed to calm him down a bit.
Alice was relieved. She really hoped that the Healer would be able help Neville and get him away from those nightmares. For some reason, the potion seemed to have awakened his worst memories. Maybe Hannah knew more.
"I'm glad about that. We really need professional help here," Alice said.
"Yes, I think so too," Hannah said. "It would have been better if he had chosen someone he trusted and done it at 's right away."
Alice didn't answer. Neville didn't seem to trust his colleagues too much; at least that was how she felt. After the treatment she had received during her own stay there, she didn't want to set a foot to this place anymore.
"Do you have any idea what he's talking about when he doesn't notice us anymore?"
Hannah took a deep breath. "Yes, I think I do. He's remembering the time when the Carrows have been teaching at Hogwarts. You know that he was something of a leader of the resistance back then, don't you?"
Alice didn't like to admit it but this was one of the things they had never talked about much. She knew that Neville had resisted the new regime until Lestrange had made him realise that it was useless or something along those lines. She had not known about him being a leader of any sort.
"The Carrows were punishing people really cruelly," Hannah continued. "Many of us were injured. Neville seems to feel guilty about this in a way. I never knew. I always thought he believed it was worth it." She swallowed. "He always seemed so strong and brave. As if it didn't bother him at all."
Neville had never told her about any of this. Maybe he believed that he had to shelter her from these things. To him, she was still the sick woman who couldn't cope with anything. He had never known what she had seen and heard back when she had been an Auror.
"Did the Carrows force him to do something bad too?"
"Well, they tried," Hannah said quietly. "They wanted us to practice the Cruciatus curse on people who were in detention. Often others from our group, the DA. Most of us said the word without anything happening but Neville always refused. He wouldn't do it. Got plenty of trouble because of that. We didn't know that he was so horrified by it though. We thought it was a question of principals to him."
Alice looked at her son who was lying still again, clutching his head. She had had no idea. It made her understand some of his decisions a bit better. To him, the war against Voldemort had never been anything but fear, pain, misery and hospital rooms. He had never experienced the strong company within the Order, the feeling to fight for the right thing, no matter how dangerous it was, the intensity of living that came with the knowledge that every day could be your last. It wasn't really surprising that he didn't want to endanger the "peace" they were living in now.
It had been a clever plan indeed. The Carrows had obviously terrorized the students and made it clear that they were in power now and could do to them whatever they wanted. After his victory over Harry Potter, Voldemort had sent Lestrange to take over and pretend that he had never approved of the Carrows' behaviour. The higher-ranking Death Eaters had seemingly sided with the children and in their desperation many of them had accepted it.
The doorbell rang.
"This must be Hestia," Hannah said.
"We'll be back with you soon, Neville," Alice said. "We've called a Healer, Hestia Jones."
They went downstairs and out into the garden so they could Hestia in.
"Thank you very much for coming," Hannah said. "I know it's quite late already."
"No problem, it's my job to help," Hestia said. "I'm sure Neville would have done the same for me. Will you tell me a bit about this potion he took?"
They did, as much as they knew about it at least. It wasn't too much. Hestia didn't look too happy with that.
"I don't know if I can help you if you don't have more information for me," she admitted. Alice inwardly cursed Rodolphus Lestrange for his secrecy.
"I've done the after examinations for Lockhart but everything had worked fine in his case. But we'll see."
She followed them upstairs.
"Hello Neville, it's me, Hestia Jones," she said.
Neville looked up. "Hello," he said quietly. Alice was glad that he didn't seem to be bothered by the Healer's presence. She carried out a few physical examinations. Neville's fever had reached 39 degrees again.
"He has a very bad headache which doesn't respond to healing magic," Hestia noted, a symptom Alice and Hannah had noticed themselves. Making headaches go away was a very basic use of healing magic and Alice had learned it at the beginning of her first-aid for Aurors-class.
"It's probably due to magical reasons," Hestia said. "I'd like to make a check-up on his magic if you don't mind. Does Neville have any recent magic diagrams from before he took the potion?"
Hannah looked at Alice. "He has brought something like that. You've put it into some file, haven't you?"
"Yes, I'll fetch it," Alice said quickly. Hannah being with Neville and the Healer should be enough.
"No need to hurry, there are a few things I have to check," Hestia said.
Alice left Neville's room and walked towards her father-in-law's old study. They were using this room to keep important files now. One of them contained their magic diagrams from St-Mungo's. Alice's own fell into her hands first and she looked through them. The first had been made right at the start of Auror training. She had been required to have the flows of her magic checked before she got admitted. The diagram had been signed by Healer Derwent. Belenus Derwent was a very able and respected Healer. He had resigned his job in protest against Lestrange's dismissal and left for the USA. Back then, Alice had thought this was a strong gesture, by now it felt like a betrayal. He might have been able to help them much earlier or at least spare them the more harmful forms of treatment. Instead, he had abandoned the war-torn Great Britain for the sake of a Death Eater.
With a jolt, Alice noticed that Lestrange himself had signed the second one. She had forgotten that she had ever been treated by him but now she remembered the occurrence. A battle between Aurors and Death Eaters in Yorkshire. She had been hit by an unknown curse from Dolohov and the others had insisted on her going to 's because they had suspected damage to her magic. There had been no such damage however. Alice had been at the prime of her magical power back then.
It had weakened again during the pregnancy and lack of practice in the year she had spent in hiding because of the prophecy. They had never planned to have a child in the middle of the war, it had been an accident. Keeping the child had never been a question for her though, no matter how unhappy Crouch had been about this development.
The third magic diagram had been made by Healer Stebbins right after the attack. Everything was looking so wrong and messed up that it was a wonder she had even survived rather than being killed by her own twisted magic.
The fourth one had been done at the start of her treatment. It was signed by Hestia. Alice was surprised to see that it looked much better than the one from the beginning. There was still visible damage but some of her magic had already restored itself. She had never known. No one had ever told her that she had undone some of the damage herself.
The last showed a healthy pattern again but there weren't nearly as many connections as there had been before. Alice knew that new ones could be made if she practiced more, maybe there even were some by now. She also knew that it would never be the way it had been back when she had fought at the front lines of the battle between Order of the Phoenix and Death Eaters anymore. This wasn't only true for her magic.
Enough of this, Alice told herself. She had come because she needed Neville's pattern. It was here, showing the odd flow of magic caused by the barrier of the memory charm. No one had signed it.
She returned with the diagram, Hestia had already made a new one and was busy testing Neville's blood in a small basin with various spells and potions.
"Did she find out anything?" Alice asked Hannah quietly.
"Well, there seems to be something wrong with his magic," Hannah said. "I don't really understand this diagram stuff though. He's definitely not allergic to Medea's Leaf. That's not the problem."
"Yes. And there are no traces of the ingredients left in his body either," Hestia said, having finished the blood test. "He has not been poisoned the ordinary way. The magic contained in the potion must be the reason for the problems. Do you have the diagram?"
She took it from Alice's hands and put the two pieces of parchment next to each other. Alice looked over her shoulder. Some magic was flowing through the Memory Charm barrier now but was blocked by other streams of magic which seemed to attempt to keep the barrier up. It couldn't flow through and accumulated behind this new barrier, some of it trickling out and being blocked again. Alice didn't need to be a Healer to tell that this must be the reason for Neville's illness.
"Can you do something against this?" she asked.
Hestia sighed. "There are a few things that could be tried but I have two problems. I'm not familiar with the magic that has been applied to this potion. I've never heard of this spell but I assume it's darkish in nature given the effects that are supposed to be achieved. Because Neville has created the potion himself, it's impossible to separate the magic used in there from his own. Otherwise I could have tried to trace it. This way I can't see if there's something wrong with the spell either."
"Does this mean you can't do anything?" Hannah asked desperately.
"I could do something but knowing so little I can't be sure that it helps rather than making matters worse," Hestia explained.
"Could you tell us what you're thinking of?" Alice asked.
"Yes, certainly. There are spells or potions that block his magical resistance. This would allow the magic from the spell to work without interference."
Alice shivered when she heard this. She remembered the magic Lestrange had used on them at the beginning of the torture to keep them from resisting the curse. This must have been something like that. She forced herself away from those memories. She had no time for them now.
"I could also try a symptomatic treatment with a strong calming potion combined with something against the pain and against the fever. If he found rest, the potion might work properly without any outside control of his magic. The third option would be the use of the Imperius curse. Yes, I know it used to be an Unforgivable curse but it has been allowed for medical applications all the time. If it worked, it would enable me to guide him to use his magic in a way that isn't harmful but if it failed, he'd try to resists even harder. Any of this should only be done under constant supervision at 's."
Alice and Hannah shared a long look.
"I don't mean any disrespect but I'm not sure if anything like this should be done if you don't know exactly what it will do," Hannah said.
Alice agreed wholeheartedly. She didn't know what else they were supposed to do though. Hestia's first option made her sick with dread, the second one sounded reasonable at first glance, but Alice knew what these kinds of potions had done to herself. She didn't want to force Neville to go through the same. Even though she knew that the Imperius curse had sometimes been used by Healers in the past, she wasn't comfortable with that either. It had not been declared unforgivable without reason.
"You don't have to make a decision right away," Hestia said kindly. "Neville's state isn't immediately critical at the moment. Maybe he'll manage to get by on his own after all. This is surely the safest option. You have the Portkey to 's if he should get worse. I'll give you a stronger potion against the fever and headache and if you want me to try something, you can contact me anytime."
"Alright, thank you," Hannah said.
Alice had hoped for a different result. Still, Hestia had come here in her free time, so she thanked her and offered her to stay for dinner. Hestia refused this though. She probably knew that the Longbottom women didn't feel like having a nice dinner at the moment. Hannah accompanied her to the door while Alice stayed with Neville.
Neville asked for something to drink again and Alice gave him water. At least he hadn't vomited anymore. "My head is aching," he said. "Potion doesn't work."
Alice suppressed a sigh. She had feared it wouldn't work. Magical pain didn't respond to the normal counter measures as she knew only too well. This probably meant that the entire "symptomatic treatment" approach would be useless.
Alice put a hand on his forehead. It was glowing with fever. Her magic could sense the pain but there was nothing that could undo it. During her pregnancy, she had sometimes seen herself sitting at the bedside of her sick child. She had planned what she would need to keep at home for such cases; she couldn't simply go out and get a Healer while hiding from Voldemort. Now the "child" was an adult but she was going through exactly this situation. At least, she could get a Healer now and she could take him to 's too. He'd have to swallow his pride if necessary.
"I'm sorry Mum, I didn't mean to do be so ill," Neville said. "I didn't mean to give you all so much worry. It was stupid to try it."
"It's not your fault," Alice reassured him. At least he knew who he was, who she was and what was going on at the moment. "I understand very well that you want to know the truth. I want you to remember the time we have spent together too. There are many good memories, only this one bad one. You've loved plants even back then. Maybe try to remember that."
"I do try but I can't," Neville said sadly. "I think I've done it wrong. I've always been so bad at potions."
"I don't know that," Alice said. "We don't know what the potion is supposed to be like. That's why we can't check it."
"Lestrange," Neville said. "He knows. Maybe Hannah could, could ask him to have a look at my potion."
He looked embarrassed, probably because he knew how she felt about this. She didn't want him to feel even worse because of her but hearing that he thought of Lestrange when looking for help in such a situation did disturb her. Had he really managed to win Neville's trust? Neville claimed otherwise in front of her but she wasn't sure if he was really saying the truth. Maybe he didn't really know the truth himself.
Hannah had a more pragmatic view on the subject matter. "I know you don't like the idea but it's the only reasonable thing to do, isn't it? If he's the only person who knows how this potion is supposed to work, he'll have to figure out what's gone wrong," she said while feeding Neville some of the chicken soup they had cooked for him.
"I don't really like going there, but if it's not getting better, I'll do it tomorrow," Hannah said.
Alice didn't respond. She didn't want to see Rodolphus Lestrange involved with her life in any way. Still, she had no real reason to object to Hannah showing him the potion they had been working on together. It was Neville's wish after all and she had no right to make any decision for him. He had long since become an adult and she was the one under his guardianship, not the other way round.
Her only hope was the Neville's state would improve over night.
"I think we should go and eat something too," Hannah said.
Eating was the last thing Alice felt like doing now. She knew that she had to though, but not right away.
"I'll take the diagrams back," Alice said. She didn't quite know why but order had become very important to her since she had been ill. She always made sure that everything was in its proper place, sometimes the others were annoyed by that.
Hannah didn't seem to mind though.
Alice wished she had some proper training in interpreting these diagrams. Derwent had told her a few things about it and so had, as much as she hated to admit it Lestrange. Looking at Neville's latest diagram she recognised something familiar. The defensive magic he had used to protect the Memory Charm looked very much like something in one of her own diagrams, the one from the end of her stay at 's. It reminded her of her self-developed defence against the after-effects of the Cruciatus curse.
Alice realised what that must mean. Neville had had the curse used on him by the Carrows, Hannah had told her that much. The magic had done some damage and now, Neville responded as if he was under a dark magic attack again. Hadn't Hestia called the magic in the potion "darkish"? Consciously, Neville knew that the current situation was different but there were things happening inside him which he couldn't control. Alice knew that very well, it kept happening to her. Every time the potion started to work, he remembered the Carrows and thought he had to fight.
It was quite likely that this was one of the reasons for Neville's state. The fact that the Charm had been applied at such a young and affected the development of his magic as well as his fear of the things he was going to remember probably made it even more difficult.
Alice didn't believe that the methods Hestia had suggested would help here. What they needed to do was motivating him to remember. Neville needed pleasant memories at first to make this possible. She was the one who could do that because she had been there almost all the time. Alice could tell him about these times, she had pictures she could show him and maybe even the smells of some things.
She was also able to practice Legilimency which might allow her to keep the Carrow memories at bay and help him remember the right things. She had to try that.
Alice looked at the diagrams for one last time. It made her wonder if the person who had cast this Memory Charm had really intended to help Neville. He seemed to be sure that it had not been a Death Eater but one of the Aurors. If everything went as planned, she'd soon know more. At least she would if Neville shared the memory with her.
When Alice joined Hannah at the kitchen table she did manage to eat a serving of soup. While eating, she explained to Hannah what she had come up with.
"This sounds good," she said. "Better than the suggestions from Healer Jones. And it won't do any harm if it does. I really hope it'll help though."
"So do I," Alice said. If this failed as well, 's would probably be the only option left.