Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Additionally, this work has references to canon child endangerment and crimes against humanity. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: I am supposed to state here how I used my song prompt. I used the mood of the music but especially focused on the words of the last verse which is also where the title comes from.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Quidditch League (S11); Hogwarts 2.0 (T03); RAVEN (2024); MC4A (Su-Yr7)
Individual Challenges: Five-Oh My; Student MC; Red Instead; Major; Falling Apart; Royal; Ginger; Hogwarts MC; Hogwarts MC; Magical MC; Magical MC; Magical MC; Sandbox (Y); Cinematic; Reader; Gamer; Saucy Oven; Dreamers; Dreamers; Tossed Chum; Nonhuman MC; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion; Short Jog; Bucket Listing (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Exchange; Greatest Gift; Outer Limit; Two Cakes (Y); Vial Collector; Setting Sail; Bi Bi Bi; Zukes of Hazard; Castle Time; Lunar Era; Finders; Rainbow Connection
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Assignment: Term 03-03
Subject [Task (Prompt)]: Dentistry [Task#1 (ache that won't go away)]
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Gather [Druid 7 (Spores)](Neville Longbottom); Library [New Moon](Depression/Keeping Secrets)
QL Round: Season 11 - Semi Finals
QL Team (Position): Wanderers (Chaser 1)
QL Prompt(s): "A Phoenix Lament" - Ministry of Magic (Last Verse); Ghost Appearance; Neville Longbottom; Love (Platonic)
RAVEN Challenges: A&B [14](Crying/Sobbing); Traits [75](Rebel); Colors [91](Tangerine); Items [89](Towel); Settings [12](Castle)
Other MC4A Challenges: Ship (Neville/Luna QPR)[1B (Hobby)]; Chim [Bobby](Protection; "Carry On My Wayward Son" - Kansas); Hunt [Su WD (Depression); Su Set (Night)]; Fire [Bang]; Garden [Tools (Dress/Skirt); Flowers (Gray); Achuffa (Hurt/Comfort); Worms (Garden)]
Representation(s): Neville Longbottom & Luna Lovegood; background Winky/Dobby; Occupation of Hogwarts; Acts of Service (Love Language)
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Brooms Only; A Long Dog; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; Found Family; Nontraditional; Sneeze Weasel; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Mother Hen; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Pear-Shaped; Wabi Sabi; Machismo; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade); Demo 1 (Muck & Slime; Queen Bee; Civil Disobedience; Most Human Bean; Shiver & Shake; Over the Hills; Where Angels Fear; Lovely Coconuts; Casper's House; Under the Bridge); Demo 2 (Head of Perseus; Call Me Dantes; Hot Stuff; Sailer Delight; Abandoned Ship; Creature Feature; Sitting Hummingbird); Demo 1p (Hot Apple); Demo 2p (In the Trench; Saucy Buns) [x3]
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Terrarium); SN (Rail; Spare); FR (Liberation); Once (Moses Supposes; Santa Fe); CM (Yogin); War (Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui)
Space Address (Prompt): SpB 4E (Copper); TrB 1C (The Orphan); SuB 5E (Earth); AU 2D (Any Fandom); CM 2A (Overstimulation);
Word Count: 1338 words

(^^)
Something Death Cannot Erase
(^^)

Neville started seeing them after a terrible detention with the Carrows. He was only thankful that it was him staying in the hospital wing for a week and not the three second-years he had been told to practice curses on. He would do it all over again, new visions and everything.

Whatever they were, they weren't ghosts. At least they were not like normal ghosts, incorporeal but still having a physical presence in their icy auras. These were still incorporeal but also didn't seem to have anything physical about them. They were more like faded shadows of real people. Sometimes they were clearly playing out scenes from the past. Other times, they were trying to gain the attention of the living around them. Most people didn't even notice them moving through the castle's halls, even when they were screaming right in someone's face.

It was as terrifying as it was mystifying.

Most of the ghosts weren't anyone that Neville knew. Sometimes he would recognize some feature or another that a particular family was known to have such as Weasley red hair or the dark gray eyes of the Blacks or the uneven squareness to the jaw that all of the Flints have. But there were a few that he did know, if only because he had seen pictures.

Besides, Harry really did look like his father. Furthermore, James Potter favored his mother, which made it easy to see the Black stamp on his features. If it weren't for the differences in their coloring, James Potter and Sirius Black could easily be mistaken for twins, especially in the perpetual youth they had as shades. As it was, with one being tan skin, brown hair, and golden eyes and the other being pale skin, gray eyes, and black hair, they looked like the inverse of each other. The two mostly wandered around the Gryffindor section of the castle and occasionally to the seventh floor corridor where the Room of Requirement was.

Most disturbing was the skulking form of Mad-Eye Moody. Even in death, the man was terrifyingly disfigured. He still had his peg leg but where his magical glass eye had been was just a deep cavity. Unlike the version of him that had taught back in fourth year, this ghost of the man was just as quiet as he was watchful. He would follow the new professors around as silent as the ghost he was. Neville was convinced that at least half of their complaints about students vandalizing their offices was actually Moody's ghost (or maybe James Potter and Sirius Black, given the sort of things that Neville had overheard Harry and Ron talking about).

"I see them, too," Luna whispered one day when they were sitting together on the dock under Hogwarts.

Neville was startled to hear her voice. She had been getting progressively less verbal as the term had progressed. In the absence of Harry, the bullying in Ravenclaw had picked up again. The Death Eaters on staff just encouraged it. All Neville could do was things like what they were doing: spending time in her presence without forcing her to act any certain way.

It wasn't nearly enough.

"They seem even more trapped than ghosts normally are," Neville whispered back. The soft lapping of the lake as it hit the rocky beach under the dock was a lullaby. It was far too peaceful for the nightmare that was their life. Luna's heather gray eyes seemed to shine silver like the moon she had been named after as she turned her face towards him.

"They are," she agreed, "and so are we."

The heavy truth of the words stayed with Neville in the long months that followed. It echoed in the space left behind when Luna hadn't returned after winter break. It acted as the foundation as he set up a refuge in the Room of Requirement for the more frequently targeted students. It filled the hollow space in his stomach as he skipped meals to provide them food after the house elves had been ordered to not answer summons, and it was too risky to sneak into the kitchens, even with the help Neville got from the castle's ghosts (both seen and unseen).

And the ghosts did help in what ways they could. Whether it was as sentries or advisors, the ghosts began rallying around the innocents Neville was gathering in the hidden sanctuary. The House Ghosts would guide students to the ever-moving entry points to the sanctuary. Peeves made himself even more of a pest than he had during Umbridge's tenure. James and Sirius became the scouts whenever Neville needed to get food for the refugees.

When the portrait of the blond girl appeared in the sanctuary, it was those two who discovered the passage hidden behind it and the dubious safety at the other end. The Hog's Head might not have been much but Aberforth Dumbledore was more than willing to smuggle out what students he could, ushering them into the underground network that had been set up for the first version of this war and reactivated when the second version had picked up in earnest. Neville had kept his knowledge of it to a bare minimum (couldn't give away information that he didn't have), but James and Sirius had both confirmed what Aberforth had said.

Neville couldn't get all of them out, but every single one he saved was one less person trapped. That was enough to allow him to sleep most nights. Other nights he slipped through the less guarded halls and stairs to work in the greenhouses. The smell of compost and soil soothed him as much as being surrounded by plants both practical and magical. Sometimes he would just sit between the beds of vegetables and stare up at the moon, wondering if Luna had gotten out or if something else had happened to her.

He could never determine which he thought was worse: that she left without him or that she wasn't given a choice.

Then came the evening that Winky appeared in the middle of the sanctuary. She was already weeping and wailing, tearing at her little dress made of bright tangerine terry cloth. Neville's heart filled in his throat when he spotted the little swell around her midsection as he raced from his hammock to her side. His arms wrapped around her frail form, uselessly attempting to restrain her flailing arms. Her fingers dug into the muscles of his arms as she switched from tearing at her clothes to clinging to him.

"They killed him," she sobbed into his chest. "They killed my Dobby!"

Neville rested his chin on her hair and rocked them in place.

He couldn't help the seed of jealousy unfurling in his chest. At least she knew for certain. As much as it was hurting her and as much danger as the broken bond was putting her and her pup at risk by leaking her magic, at least she knew. He might never know what happened to Luna. Seamus might never know what happened to Dean before the school year even started. There were so many people who had just vanished, never to be heard from again or their bodies found. There was just no way of knowing their fate.

A week later, Neville woke up from a deep sleep with a sudden surge of fear. Standing next to his hammock was the shade of Mad-Eye Moody. His empty eye socket was particularly eerie in the darkness of the sanctuary. Neville swallowed hard at the coppery taste of terror in his mouth. His heart pounded in his chest as he just stayed locked in the ghost's gaze.

"It will be over by dawn," Moody said, speaking for the first time since Neville started seeing the strange ghosts. "One way or another."

With those words of parting, the former auror burst into a pillar of pale golden light and disappeared.

When Ariana indicated someone was coming through the portrait passage, Neville was already waiting.