Summary: Neville was locked in the dorms alone with his darkening thoughts, and it was one of the worst tortures he had to endure.

Rated: T

Genre: Angst, Hurt no Comfort

Warning Tags: Implied/References Torture & Abuse of Children; Isolation; Imprisonment

Nothing But Stardust

Neville lay awake in the vacant dorm room in Gryffindor Tower, staring up at the canopy above. The curtains were drawn closed, not for privacy, but in an attempt to block out the sound. Despite it already being deathly quiet in the room—no one was snoring or sleep talking—Neville couldn't help but still hear the tortured cries and pleas for mercy echoing from the dungeons below.

That was impossible, right? He was so far from the dungeons, so high up in the castle that it must be his imagination. It wouldn't be surprising if it was; those sounds weren't exactly easy to ignore or shake once they were ingrained into memory.

It nearly killed Neville when he was forced to leave Seamus in the hands of the Carrows earlier that evening. They knew how to hurt Neville, and that was denying him physical pain in order to remain with his friends and younger students facing punishment. He willingly endured unnecessary torture to make sure the others weren't as badly beaten, offering a distraction and dividing the Carrow twins' attention to spread out their malice and not have it solely focused on one victim. It wasn't much, but it helped for a time.

What Neville underestimated was that they eventually picked up on this tactic, and now he was paying a more agonizing price for not being discreet enough.

Being alone in the dorm was one of the worst things Neville faced. Without Seamus there to plan the next rebellion and endure the suffering while fighting the good fight, Neville had nothing to distract him from the intrusive thoughts he tried so hard to keep at bay. Seamus was the only dormmate left this year after all.

Neville tossed and turned in his bed, sleep eluding him as the phantom cries and guilt plagued his thoughts. He sat up and wrenched open the curtains to pace the room, passing the beds, door, window, and stove over and over. Stopping, he stoked the dying coals in the potbelly stove at its center in an attempt to fend off the oncoming chill before passing it by once more. He eyed the cold, beddingless mattresses surrounding him while bypassing those, too. He couldn't take it anymore.

Going to the door, he gave it a firm shoulder nudge against it while messing with the handle. Locked. Unsurprising. It wasn't one that would be undone by a simple unlocking charm, either. It was warded and sealed beyond Neville's skillset. He could feel the magic drip from his makeshift prison with a single touch. He couldn't handle it anymore.

An empty laugh escaped him as he turned to face the window.

'I bounced the first time, maybe I'll splat the second time,' he thought darkly, making his way to the frost-covered window.

What was stopping him from throwing himself through it to relieve himself of the maddening loneliness and misery? It would relinquish his obligation and duty to fight against the darkness and evil while he watched the suffering, the agony, and the fading hope of others each passing day. He couldn't do that, not to his friends, not to the younger students. They needed him—a beacon of hope.

He reached for the window knob and gave it a shove. Nothing. Warded and sealed closed just like the door. Another empty laugh was released; why wouldn't it be? It was apparently reinforced as well as the book he threw at it with great force ricocheted off it and shot into a dresser with a loud bang.

'What a selfish thought,' Neville scolded himself, throwing himself back onto his bed.

His mind wandered to the other empty beds, thinking darker thoughts while mulling over each housemate that wasn't present. Dean, he knew, had a solid reason for not being there. He'd be in a cell underground and used for vile demonstration purposes as to why he was the 'filth' of the wizarding world, regardless of the other teachers' attempt to interfere with such barbaric practice. The Creevey brothers had already succumbed to that before he managed to get them out of Hogwarts entirely. It was all about blood status to the psychotic Death Eaters. Dean was better off running, and so was Hermione. If they were still even alive, that was; Neville hoped that they knew how to keep their heads down.

But then there was Ron, a pureblood—he would be mostly safe and unscathed here. Blood traitor or not, the Death Eaters believed it could be beaten out of you. So far their efforts had failed with Neville. Why wasn't Ron here with him? Did he chicken out and go into hiding with his family? But Ginny came, why wasn't she in hiding? If he were Ron, he wouldn't have left his sister alone in this hell hole. Ginny could hold her own well without any help, but she was his sister, his family—he wouldn't abandon family, right?

'He abandoned us…' Neville's intrusive thoughts hissed. 'Coward.'

Ginny knew just as much as he did about Ron's whereabouts or reasons for this disappearance in the time of extreme crisis. Apparently his entire family was in the same boat. The trio just vanished after the attack at the wedding, and that was all anyone knew.

Bile burned his throat from considering them cowards. There had to be a reason, Harry wouldn't abandon them, not like this. The downfall of Dumbledore shook everyone, but it affected Harry the most, and Neville couldn't help but wonder why his faith in the headmaster wasn't shattered like the rest of them.

Neville curled up under the covers, the cold becoming too much to tolerate now. It wasn't numbing him like he wanted as the darkness continued to cloud his mind.

Everything was about Harry. Harry, the Boy Who Lived. Harry, the Savior of the Wizarding World. Harry. Harry. Harry.

'This was all Harry's doing,' Neville decided. 'The reason why I'm here, the reason I've lived the way I have. We are a mirror image of one another, and I hate it.'

It certainly explained a lot, especially after hearing the prophecy he discovered was almost linked to him a few years ago. He was a pureblood, Harry was a half-blood. His parents were professional Aurors fighting against Voldemort. Harry's parents were a part of the Order doing the very same. His parents were tortured into insanity, Harry's were outright killed. His own might as well be dead too, but at least he had them in physical form to visit, to talk to, even if they probably had no idea who he was. It helped. Harry didn't have that. His grandmother loved him despite her strict demeanor and off-hand disappointment in him, Harry's aunt, uncle, and cousin absolutely hated him.

Maybe he had it a smidgen better than Harry, but not by much. Hell, their birthdays were only a day apart.

Despite how their lives almost paralleled each other, Neville didn't ask for any of it. He didn't ask to be the side effect of a prophecy, and he knew Harry didn't want to be involved with it, either. But it was unfair to be a side effect to someone else's fate. Sure, he could be in Harry's very shoes had Voldemort chosen to attack his family, but he wouldn't wish for Harry to be his side effect had that came to be. Why did he have to be a part of all this?

Swearing under his breath, Neville pulled the curtains closed to try and keep the feeble warmth in. If he wasn't going to sleep, he didn't want to freeze to death while he allowed his mind to wander through the abyss. He shifted into pondering about life itself and what it was made of. What the universe was made of. Even what Fate was made of.

'A bunch of concentrated and compacted dust,' he recited from astronomy class. 'That's all we are. Nothing but stardust. Remnants of shattered stars, planets, and crumbled rocks. Nothing else.'

Some people probably had more "dust" than others in their DNA—it was what made magic possible, or so the books said. But who really knew? How could cosmic dirt determine who or what had magic? Why did it matter if others had more and thought they were better because of it? It all was a bunch of rubbish. It was just superstitions, theories and guesses, but he still couldn't shake the dark thoughts about Harry and his own role in that blasted prophecy.

What made them so special? Why did Harry trust Dumbledore even beyond his death that whatever he was set out to do was the right way to do it? Why wasn't he more informed about the contents of the prophecy he was also weakly connected to? He could be of more help if he knew how to help beat the bad guy, and he clearly knew how to handle himself in the face of danger now. He had discovered that inner strength and courage the Sorting Hat saw long before he did. Why wasn't he trusted with more information?

Neville let out a deep sigh, laying an arm over his eyes. Exhausted and defeated both mentally and physically, he slowly felt himself fading into a restless sleep.

'Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,' Neville concluded, 'We both didn't ask for the way our lives became, but that same stardust courses through our veins… all from the same star… or whatever.'

Morning couldn't come fast enough. Neville felt the wards lift from his dorm and he immediately vacated the space. The common room had a few stragglers lounging around the warmth of the freshly made fire that Professor McGonagall was currently tending to before they made for the Great Hall for breakfast. He was cold and hungry, the fire was alluring, tempting him to huddle over it to thaw, but his mind was set in his task. Passing the comfortable seats and his friends, Neville wasn't expecting Ginny to stop him by grabbing his arm and gently turning him around.

"Neville, I'm—"

"Please leave me alone," Neville snapped back, prompting her to let him go.

He hadn't slept, driven nearly mad with his guilt of being forced to leave Seamus behind, with the loneliness he suffered without his presence, and the fury of realizing that he was more linked to that bloody prophecy and to Harry than he originally thought and wanted to be. It hardened him, it toughened him up, it made him dangerous. But he wouldn't hurt his friends. Never. Instead, he would use this darkness against the Carrows and the other Death Eaters. It would be useful that way. Helpful. Effective.

Stepping through the portrait hole, he hastily made his way down to the dungeons to get Seamus back where he belonged. To patch him up and rebuild his confidence to face the terror again. Maybe cast a few subtle curses on the ugly hag and get out of dodge before she realized what hit her. Alecto was slow enough to get away from when he did this—most of the time. It was what he was meant to do after all, wasn't it? Terrorize the terrorizers.

If Harry had to be the Savior of the Wizarding World, the least Neville could do was be the Protector of Hogwarts until Harry finished doing his part. Whenever that would be.

Orignally Written For:

Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Monthly Challenges for All

Word Count: 1,903

Originally Written: December 2018