Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 7

The Delacours arrived a couple of days before the wedding started. Prior to their arrival, Mrs. Weasley made sure that every one of us was hard at work with the cleaning and the preparations for their arrival.

"I don't understand why we're cleaning for their arrival," Fred mumbled to himself as he sorted through the wedding gifts that had already come in. "This wedding isn't for them."

"Fred, stop complaining," Mrs. Weasley called to him.

Fred kept muttering under his breath, but continued working through what his mother told him. The rest of us didn't complain, but we were all thinking the same thing as Fred – why did we have to work so hard to impress Fleur's parents?

When they finally arrived, everything was completely perfect and it almost seemed strange to see everything in such order. It wasn't that the Burrow was a complete wreck normally, but it no longer had that homey feel to it anymore with everything just so.

As soon as they walked in through the door, I suddenly realized why Mrs. Weasley was so eager to make sure everything in her house was perfect. I don't know what it was about them, but they had this certain air of elegance that almost came off as being snotty.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were the first to greet the three of them and Fleur was practically jumping with excitement when she came into the room and saw her family standing there.

"You're 'ere!" she squealed and jumped to hug each one of them.

For a moment, the four of them spoke very quickly in French and the rest of us just stood around them feeling awkward for not being able to speak the language. While I couldn't understand the actual words that were coming out of their mouths, I could tell that it was mostly them catching up and talking about how excited they were about the wedding – the tone and hand gestures gave that much away.

When Fleur's mother walked up to Harry, you could tell by the look in her eyes as she kissed each of his cheeks that he admired him – that was no mystery. Harry looked slightly surprised by her obvious respect of him and he smiled and greeted her.

"It's nice to meet you, Madame Delacour," I said as she approached me.

She gave me a smile and a small curtsy as she looked me up and down. I could almost feel her judging me. It wasn't that she seemed to not like me, but her impression of me didn't come off as obvious as it did with my brother – whom she clearly liked more for him saving her youngest Gabrielle during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.

"Very nice," she said in a monotonous voice and moved on in the line.

I blinked a couple times as I attempted to figure out what exactly she meant by that while Gabrielle came up and spoke to me.

"Lovely to see you again," she said with a big smile on her face. "I remember you from zee tournament a few years ago."

"I remember you too," I smiled. "You're the girl that my brother saved from the water."

"Yes, it vas very brave of 'im," she said happily.

Our conversation didn't really go further than that because she had to go greet the rest of the family that was standing around. Only a few moments later, Monsieur Delacour walked up to me and kissed me on both cheeks.

"How are you?" he asked politely with a grin on his face. "Vorking 'ard to get zis wedding goin, are you?"

"I've managed to keep myself busy," I replied.

"I 'ope you 'aven't gone thought much trouble for us," he said.

I didn't have the heart to tell the man that we had just spent an enormous amount of time just for their arrival, so I just shook my head and put on a façade that it was all for the wedding. In all honesty, we probably would have had to do all of that cleaning for the wedding regardless of whether or not they were coming a couple of days early.

"It was very nice to meet you," Monsieur Delacour said honestly as gave a small bow and began to greet Ginny, who was standing next to me.

Once everyone was settled in, I finally got to let myself relax while Mrs. Weasley talked to our newest guests. Now that she was too busy to order us around, most of us took this as a grand opportunity to sneak outside for a break from all that work we had been doing.

"So I'm pretty sure that Madame Delacour hates me," I commented once I was seated on the ground outside with the others.

"Really?" Harry asked curiously. "She seemed really nice to me."

"I don't know," George said as he sat down next to me. "She was giving Emily a pretty mean glare."

"What do you think that's about?" Hermione asked.

"Who knows," Fred shrugged. "Maybe she didn't like your shoes."

"That must have been it," George agreed.

"Have you spoken to her before?" Ron asked. "Maybe you offended her or something before…?"

"If I did, then I don't remember," I said. "The only other time I could have seen her was at the Triwizard Tournament and I can't imagine that I did anything then."

"You don't think it has anything to do with what they wrote about you in the papers?" Hermione suggested. "If they read those at the time, I can't imagine that they got a very good impression of you."

"You mean when they were calling her off by saying she was throwing herself around at men?" Fred asked. "Do you honestly thing that they believed that rubbish?"

"A lot of people did," I said. "It made a lot of people angry and they never really took back anything that they said about me…the talking just sort of stopped."

"That's one theory," George said. "But I'm still sticking with the one where she doesn't like your shoes."

I rolled my eyes and looked down at my black converse shoes that I couldn't imagine would have offended her in the other room. In all honesty, I didn't really know why she didn't seem to like me, but it didn't bother me as much as it should have. Maybe it was because I wouldn't have to deal with her much once we were off on the search for Horcruxes…or possibly ever again depending on whether or not I actually survived the search.

The morning before the wedding, it was decided that Lupin would be going to the hospital with me to pick up Neville. Of course, he would also be taking Polyjuice Potion because he was as much of a target as I was – they knew that he was with me and we weren't going to take any chances. So, for our charade, he was going to act as my father as we got on the train and made our way there.

"You need to make sure not to give yourself away," Lupin instructed me as I walked toward the door with the potion in my hand. "They know that you are friends of the Longbottoms and I wouldn't doubt that there will be Death Eaters out there watching him."

"Right, that's the plan," I nodded. "It's all an act – we know what to do."

"Don't trust anyone that you meet in the hospital," Lupin said. "We don't know who is on whose side and you need to just assume that everyone is a Death Eater – don't let your guard down for even a second."

"You either," I said. "This isn't just me going there, remember?"

"I know how to put on a façade, Emily," Lupin said. "I've had to hide my disease for years – I know how it's done."

I nodded and suddenly began to realize how hard Lupin's life must have been. I never really thought that he just easily made his way around, but I never considered how much he had to go through to hide his secret from everyone. He had to always put on the act that he had himself together, but in reality he was just terrified of the thing that he could become.

Since we were putting on an act as we went to the hospital, Lupin had already gone the extra mile and found a car that we could use to get us to the train station toward London. As we drove off in the car that he found, Lupin continued to list off some precautions to what we were about to do as we made our way to the edges of the Burrow's protective shield. Even though I practically knew the plan inside and out, it didn't stop him from making sure of it. When we reached our stopping point, just before we crossed over to where we could head toward to the train station, Lupin hit the breaks and stopped the car.

"You know that you don't have to do this, right?" he asked. "It's dangerous for you to be leaving here and we can just as easily pick him up from the hospital without you being there."

"He already thinks I'm going to be there," I said. "And besides, Neville is my responsibility – I should be the one that pays the consequences if we're caught."

He didn't argue with me any further – most likely because he knew that I wasn't going to back out of this now – and we both decided that now was the best time to take our potions. As soon as we did, I began to feel a strange sensation flow through my body as I transformed into the Muggle girl from Privet Drive.

My hair, which had gotten rather long this summer, began to creep up into my head until it rested just below my shoulders and then began to dramatically change from its usual shade of red to a dark brown color. My appendages, which weren't that much longer than hers, only shrunk a few inches everywhere and my teal dress with blue trim only became slightly tighter than it had been before.

"Ready?" Lupin asked as he felt the balding head of the man that he had transformed into.

"Ready as I'll ever be," I said to him.

It took a long time to get to London without using any sort of magic to get us there. It didn't occur to me how slow the Muggle way was until I was no longer able to use any other means of transportation. On the other hand, using a car and a train prevented Voldemort and the Death Eaters from discovering who we really were.

Although I was more skeptical and jumpy than usual, it seemed like we were in the clear the entire way into London and it didn't appear like anyone was following us. Even knowing this, the paranoia that we both had kept us on our toes whenever someone looked in our general direction. It wasn't until we stepped off of the train that we finally relaxed a bit as we went on the search to find the Longbottoms.

It took us a good minute to search through the streets, but luckily it wasn't that crowded today and it didn't take us too long to find them sitting at the shop where we agreed to meet.

"Neville!" I called out to him.

"Oh, hey Elizabeth," Neville said when he noticed the two of us walking up to him.

When his eyes flickered back to Lupin, whose disguise seemed to embody the complete opposite of the man that he really was, I realized that this had not been part of the original plan.

"Father and I just got off of the train," I explained as well as I could. "You haven't been waiting long, I hope?"

"We only been here a few minutes, dearie," Mrs. Longbottom smiled down at me. "How was the trip here?"

"There wasn't any trouble," Lupin spoke up.

"Excellent," Mrs. Longbottom said. "I guess we can catch up more once we've gotten into the hospital.

Keeping up our façade of being as casual as we possibly could, we made our way to the entrance of the hospital. There was the usual small talk, but nothing that would give anything away about who we actually were. We were careful to check around as often as we could without making it obvious and it didn't seem like anyone was suspicious of us. Then again, we were heading toward the hospital and that wasn't too odd of a thing to do.

"Oh, Mrs. Longbottom," a Healer smiled when she caught us walking toward the stairs. "How are you all doing?"

"We're doing fine, Teresa," she said to the young, blonde woman that stood in front of us. "Just bringing Neville and one of his friends to see Frank and Alice – have you been by to see them yet?"

"I was earlier for their usual morning exercises," Teresa, the Healer, told us. "They seem to be relatively okay today – it'll be a good visiting day, I'm sure."

As they were talking, I began to become self-conscious of the fact that people were noticing our presence there. Even the shortest glance from a stranger made me nervous and I felt as though I was only seconds away from a nervous breakdown.

When I started to feel myself began to feel as though I was about to start hyperventilating, I felt Neville grab onto my hand and give me a concerned look. Was I being that obvious that I was losing my mind standing in the lobby of this hospital?

"You okay?" Neville asked quietly.

"I'm fine," I said in an unconvincing tone.

"Do you just want to leave?" he asked. "I can come by and see my parents another time."

"No, we came to see them now and that's what we're going to do," I said.

In all honesty, I wanted to tell him that I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and head back to the Burrow, but that wasn't there to him. I know that he wasn't going to admit it, but I knew the real reason that we were here. Neville wasn't sure if he actually would be seeing his parents again once we ran off and looked for Horcruxes…he was saying goodbye to them in case something happened to him.

The thought of losing my friend made me want to curl up in a ball and cry, but I knew that now was not the time or place to have a breakdown. I had already done enough for someone else to notice I was panicking and I couldn't risk any more than that.

When Mrs. Longbottom finally finished chatting with the Healer, we made our way up to the room as casually as we possibly could. Although I wanted to run up to get out of the view of the general public, I slowed my pace to match Neville's as he continued to hold onto my hand to make sure I didn't run away.

"Oh, wonderful – there's Lockhart," Neville muttered as we entered the ward where his parents stayed.

Looking over, I was shocked to see that our old Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was still in the hospital. The last time I saw him he seemed to have been recovering, but I guess that it was a longer process than I originally thought.

"He'll probably be getting out soon," Neville said to me. "He's practically himself again, but they want to keep him around to make sure. He's still a little unstable…then again, he was like that before the loss of memory…"

Looking over at the once-famed, blonde-haired man made me think back to when he actually was a part of my life. That time seemed so long ago and it was hard to believe how much had changed since then. Even as bad as things got with the Chamber of Secrets back in those days, it was nothing in comparison to the danger that presented itself today. Voldemort may have still been after me in those days, but at least I didn't have to disguise myself in public just to save myself from death.

"Ah, look at the two of you," Mrs. Longbottom said as we stepped into the Longbottom's room.

Frank and Alice looked up from the beds they were sitting in with a look that can only be described as genuine curiosity. While it looked as though there was a small bit of recognition of Frank's mother and their son, the vacant expressions on their face told me that they didn't truly know who their visitors were.

"Neville's brought some friends with him today," Mrs. Longbottom said. "Say hello to them, dearies."

The two of them looked from her to Neville and finally over to us. It was a little more obvious that they didn't recognize either Lupin or me in our disguises, but I had a feeling that they probably wouldn't have recognized us in our actual forms either.

"Hi," I waved to them. "It's nice to see you again."

When I looked up at Lupin, expecting a greeting to them from him, it dawned on me that these people were not just Neville's parents to him – Lupin knew them before all of this. The expression on his face looked like it was meant to be friendly as he waved at his old friends, but all I could see was sadness in his eyes as he looked at their vacant forms.

Seeing Neville's hurt expression as he looked ahead at the parents who didn't even know his name made me feel sad enough, and combined with the look on Lupin's as he saw the friends that he had lost so many years ago made me feel like I was broken. Frank and Alice were people that Lupin used to be able to call on – they were the people that joined him and so many others during the First Wizarding War – and now they were in a state that was worse than death.

It occurred to me that maybe this was the first time in a long time that Lupin must have seen his old friends, and I could completely understand why – because it hurt him. They may have survived the torture they went through, but they didn't continue to live afterwards and that's a fate that I wouldn't wish upon the worst people.

We stayed in the hospital room with them for a good while, but not many words were exchanged as we watched Frank and Alice gaze off into the distance and mutter some unintelligible words as we kept up our small talk as though they were a part of it. While we did that, I began to wonder what it might have been like if they hadn't been so damaged. What would they have been like?

I imagined a calm and happy life for the couple that sat in front of me. Both of them would have continued to be successful Aurors, but maybe they would have settled down more once Neville began to grow. Maybe they would have taught him everything they knew about magic and told all the stories about their travels. They would have encouraged their son to take on every opportunity in life and not be afraid of what life could bring up to him…they would grow old together and be happy…

But this was the fate they were given. This was the fate that Voldemort ensured.

"Elizabeth."

I blinked and looked over and realized that Lupin had been saying something to me.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I asked if you were ready to go," he said.

"Oh, right," I answered. "Yeah, I suppose so."

After Neville said goodbye to his parents that had gone on to fiddling with the objects around them, we took our leave from the room. Our trip toward the lobby was about as chatty as the one toward the room – in other words, no one uttered a syllable. The only difference now was that there was a certain air to our silence that made me feel sadder than usual. Everyone's thoughts were on Frank and Alice and their misfortune.

"They seemed okay today," Neville commented as we reached the lobby. "Mum seemed like she was listening in better…Dad almost seemed to know who I was there for a moment…"

As he said this, I could see his eyes watering up a little and my heart sank as low as possible.

"I'm so sorry…" I said without knowing what else to say.

"No, it's fine," he said. "It's no different than usual."

Right when he said it, I felt my throat begin to close up as I thought of how he had to deal with this every day. Just imagining a younger Neville, just a small little boy who didn't understand why his mum and dad didn't know his name or that they even had a son…

It was moments like this that gave me more appreciation for my life. My childhood may not have been ideal, but at least I didn't have to wake up everyday with the realization that the people I loved the most had no idea that I existed.

I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to update and I'll try not to have that happen again. There was a lot going on this past month and I've recently had to deal with the loss of someone in my family. I'm not trying to turn this into some sob story, but I just wanted to let you all know why I haven't been writing in a while. But thank you for reading and I'll try to get the next chapter up relatively soon!

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