Giving you a head's up on what I am doing, other fic wise.

I'm trying my best to get over the writer's block of my unfinished stories, but to be honest, it's very slow going. So, there's that. I'm really sorry.

However, I am trying to start on the sequel to The Untouchables. It will be awhile. I'm also working on two Drinnys that I am looking forward to writing, however, I do indeed want to be close to being done with the fics before I publish anything. Kinda on the fence because I realized that both Drinnys are taking place in the same time frame, but I can assure you, both stories will differ very much from each other.

So yeah, that's what's going on. Anyways, back to the fic, which this chapter will be more Rowling than me. Sorry.

Also, this chapter has always made me sad.

Next chapter tho :)

Chapter 144: Neville's Secret

The journey to St Mungo's was quite quick as there was very little traffic on the roads. When we got to the building, we stepped one by one through the glass.

The reception area reminded me of what the common room looked like at Christmas. There were Christmas light strung about, holly bordered the doorways, and there were shining white Christmas trees covered in magical snow and icicles glittered in every corner, each one topped with a shining gold star. It was less crowded than the last time we had been there, and it was Hermione's turn to be fascinated by everything, as she looked around at the healers and read the different signs hanging up

We found Dad propped up in bed with the remains of his turkey dinner on a tray on his lap, looking as if he had done something he wasn't supposed to.

"Everything all right, Arthur?" asked Mum, after we all said hello to Dad and handed over our presents.

"Fine, fine," said Dad. "You-er-haven't seen Healer Smethwyck, have you?"

"No," said Mum suspiciously, "why?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Dad, a little bit too casually, as he started to unwrap his pile of gifts. "Well, everyone had a good day? What did you all get for Christmas? Oh, Harry- this is absolutely wonderful!" For he had just opened Harry's gift of fuse-wire and screwdrivers.

Mum didn't seem to buy Dad's answer. As he leaned over to shake Harry's hand, she got a peek at the bandaging under his nightshirt.

"Arthur," she said quickly, startling the lot of us, "you've had your bandages changed. Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur? They told me they wouldn't need doing until tomorrow."

"What?" said Dad, looking rather frightened and pulling the bed covers higher up his chest. "No, no-it's nothing-it's-I-"

Mum gave Dad a piercing look.

"Well-now don't get upset, Molly, but Augustus Pye had an idea. He's the Trainee Healer, you know, lovely young chap and very interested in ... um ... complementary medicine ... I mean, some of these old Muggle remedies ... well, they're called stitches, Molly, and they work very well on-on Muggle wounds-"

Mum shrieked loudly. Lupin stepped away from the bed, Bill muttered something about getting himself a cup of tea and Fred and George leapt up to accompany him, grinning.

"Brace yourselves, this is going to get loud." I whispered to Harry and Hermione.

"Do you mean to tell me," said Mum, her voice growing louder with every word, "that you have been messing about with Muggle remedies?"

"Not messing about, Molly, dear," said Dad imploringly, "it was just-just something Pye and I thought we'd try-only, most unfortunately-well, with these particular kinds of wounds-it doesn't seem to work as well as we'd hoped-"

"Meaning?"

"Well ... well, I don't know whether you know what-what stitches are?"

"It sounds as though you've been trying to sew your skin back together," said Mum with a laugh, "but even you, Arthur, wouldn't be that stupid -"

"I fancy a cup of tea, too," said Harry, jumping to his feet.

Hermione, Ginny, and I ran out the door with him. As it swung closed behind us, we heard Mum yell, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT'S THE GENERAL IDEA?"

"Typical Dad," said Ginny, shaking her head as we set off up the corridor. "Stitches ... I ask you ..."

"Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds," said Hermione. "I suppose something in that snake's venom dissolves them or something. I wonder where the tearoom is?"

"Fifth floor," said Harry.

We walked along the corridor, through a set of double doors and found a rickety staircase lined with more portraits of brutal-looking Healers. As we climbed it, the various Healers called out to us, diagnosing odd complaints and suggesting horrible remedies. One really pissed me off when a medieval wizard called out that I clearly had a bad case of spattergroit.

"And what's that supposed to be?" I asked angrily, as the Healer practically chased me through six more portraits, shoving the occupants out of the way.

" 'Tis a most grievous affliction of the skin, young master, that will leave you pockmarked and more gruesome even than you are now-"

"Watch who you're calling gruesome!" I grumbled.

"-the only remedy is to take the liver of a toad, bind it tight about your throat, stand naked at the full moon in a barrel of eels' eyes-"

"I have not got spattergroit!"

"But the unsightly blemishes upon your visage, young master-"

"They're fucking freckles!" I snapped, feeling very much offended. I was really sensitive about my freckles. "Now get back in your own picture and leave me alone!"

I looked at the others who seemed to be trying to hold back their laughter.

"What floor's this?" I said in an annoyed voice

"I think it's the fifth," said Hermione.

"Nah, it's the fourth," said Harry, "one more-"

But as he stepped on to the landing he came to an abrupt halt, staring at the small window set into the double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted SPELL DAMAGE.

"Blimey!" I said, starting at a man with recognizable wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes and a broad smile that revealed dazzlingly white teeth.

"Oh, my goodness," said Hermione suddenly, sounding breathless. "Professor Lockhart."

Our ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher pushed open the doors and moved towards us, wearing a long lilac dressing gown.

"Well, hello there!" he said. "I expect you'd like my autograph, would you?"

"Hasn't changed much, has he?" Harry muttered.

"Er-how are you, Professor?" I said. I couldn't help but feel guilty that he was there. My old malfunctioning wand had damaged Professor Lockhart's memory so badly that he had landed in St. Mungo's.

"I'm very well indeed, thank you!" said Lockhart happily, taking a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!"

"Er-we don't want any at the moment, thanks," I said, raising his eyebrows at Harry

"Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn't you be in a ward?" asked Harry.

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart's face. For a few moments he gazed intently at Harry, then he said, "Haven't we met?"

"Er ... yeah, we have," said Harry. "You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?"

"Teach?" repeated Lockhart, looking very confused. "Me? Did I?"

And then the smile reappeared quickly back on his face.

"Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!"

But just then a head poked out of a door at the far end of the corridor and a voice called, "Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?"

A sweet looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came walking up the corridor, smiling warmly at us.

"Oh, Gilderoy, you've got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day, too! Do you know, he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can't think why, he's such a sweetie, aren't you?" said the Healer, putting a hand in Lockhart's shoulder.

"We're doing autographs!" Gilderoy told the Healer, beaming. "They want loads of them, won't take no for an answer! I just hope we've got enough photographs!"

"Listen to him," said the Healer, taking Lockhart's arm and beaming fondly at him as if he were a toddler learning how to read and write for the first time. "He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be starting to come back. Will you step this way? He's in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door's usually kept locked ... not that he's dangerous! But," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "he's a bit of a danger to himself, bless him ... doesn't know who he is, you see, wanders off and can't remember how to get back ... it is nice of you to have come to see him."

I was feeling more and more guilty by the second. My wand had fucked him up for life. True, he was wrong for the things that he had done to obtain his fame, but he didn't deserve not to know himself.

"Actually, we were just-er-"

But the Healer was smiling expectantly at us, and I couldn't get the rest out. Poor bloke. We looked at each other helplessly, then followed Lockhart and his Healer along the corridor.

"Let's not stay long," I said quietly to Hermione.

The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, 'Alohomora.' The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoy's arm until she had settled him into an armchair beside his bed.

"This is our long-term residents' ward," she informed us in a low voice. "For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we've seen a real improvement in Mr. Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn't speaking any language we recognise yet. Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I'll leave you all to chat."

We took a look around. The ward had unmistakeable signs of being a permanent home to its residents. They had many more personal items around their beds than in Dad's ward; the wall around Gilderoy's headboard, for instance, was papered with pictures of himself, all beaming toothily and waving at the new arrivals. He had autographed many of them to himself in disjointed, childish writing. The moment he had been deposited in his chair by the Healer, Gilderoy pulled a fresh stack of photographs towards him, seized a quill and started signing them all feverishly.

"You can put them in envelopes," he said to Ginny, throwing the signed pictures into her lap one by one as he finished them. "I am not forgotten, you know, no, I still receive a very great deal of fan mail ... Gladys Gudgeon writes weekly ... I just wish I knew why ..." He paused, looking faintly puzzled, then beamed again and returned to his signing with renewed vigour. "I suspect it is simply my good looks ..."

Ginny gave me a pained expression as she politely started putting some of the pictures in envelopes.

A sallow-skinned, mournful-looking wizard lay in the bed opposite staring at the ceiling; he was mumbling to himself and seemed quite unaware of anything around him. Two beds along was a woman whose entire head was covered in fur. It reminded me of second year, when Hermione had put cat hair in her Polyjuice potion. Good thing her condition wasn't permanent like this lady's. At the far end of the ward flowery curtains had been drawn around two beds to give the occupants and their visitors some privacy.

"Here you are, Agnes," said the Healer brightly to the furry-faced woman, handing her a small pile of Christmas presents. "See, not forgotten, are you? And your son's sent an owl to say he's visiting tonight, so that's nice, isn't it?"

Agnes gave several loud barks, startling the lot of us.

"And look, Broderick, you've been sent a pot plant and a lovely calendar with a different fancy hippogriff for each month; they'll brighten things up, won't they?" said the Healer, bustling along to the mumbling man, setting a rather ugly plant with long, swaying tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall with her wand. "And-oh, Mrs. Longbottom, are you leaving already?"

We all turned our heads quickly at the sound of that last name. The curtains had been drawn back from the two beds at the end of the ward and two visitors were walking back down the aisle between the beds: an uppity looking old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a pointed hat decorated exactly as described by Neville third year and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed was Neville himself.

"Neville!" I said loudly. Neville jumped and cowered as though I had thrown a hex.

"It's us, Neville!" I said cheerfully, getting up out the chair ibeas sitting in. "Have you seen? Lockhart's here! Who've you been visiting?"

"Friends of yours, Neville, dear?" said Neville's grandmother graciously, smiling at us.

Suddenly, Neville looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. He didn't make eye contact with any of us, as he blushed so hard, it was almost purple. That was rather weird.

"Ah, yes," said his grandmother, looking closely at Harry and sticking out her hand for him to shake. "Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of you."

"Er-thanks," said Harry, shaking hands. Neville did not look at him. He kept his eyes on the floor as the color of his face went deeper.

"And you two are clearly Weasleys," Mrs. Longbottom continued, offering her had to Ginny and I in turn. "Yes, I know your parents-not well, of course-but fine people, fine people ... and you must be Hermione Granger?"

Hermione looked rather startled that Mrs. Longbottom knew her name, but shook hands all the same.

"Yes, Neville's told me all about you. Helped him out of a few sticky spots, haven't you? He's a good boy but he hasn't got his father's talent, I'm afraid to say." She jerked her head in the direction of the two beds at the end of the ward.

"What?" I said, amazed. "Is that your dad down the end, Neville?"

"What's this?" said Mrs. Longbottom sharply. "Haven't you told your friends about your parents, Neville?"

Neville took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. I was really starting to get even more of the feeling that he was extremely uncomfortable.

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!" said Mrs. Longbottom angrily. "You should be proud, Neville, proud!They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!"

"I'm not ashamed," said Neville, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at us.

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it!" said Mrs. Longbottom. "My son and his wife were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers."

Hermione and Ginny both gasped and put their hands over their mouths. I couldn't help but give Neville and his grandmother a mortified look. Harry looked completely dismal, his look matching Neville's.

"They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the wizarding community," Mrs Longbottom went on. "Highly gifted, the pair of them. I-yes, Alice dear, what is it?"

A woman I assumed to be Neville's mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress. Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes were big like Trelawney's behind her glasses, and her hair was white, very thin, and dead-looking. She did not seem to want to speak (or perhaps she was not able to), but she timidly held out her closed hand to Neville.

"Again?" said Mrs Longbottom, sounding as if she were annoyed. "Very well, Alice dear, very well- Neville, take it, whatever it is."

But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty Drooble's Best Blowing Gum wrapper.

"Very nice, dear," said Neville's grandmother in a fake cheery voice, patting his mother on the shoulder.

"Thanks, Mum." said Neville quietly, but sincerely, as if it was the best Christmas present in the world.

His mother crept away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked at is as if he were daring us to laugh, but I was pretty sure no one found it funny. I know I sure didn't.

"Well, we'd better get back," sighed Mrs. Longbottom, putting on long green gloves. "Very nice to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of them to paper your bedroom by now."

Neville didn't listen to her. Instead, he slip the sweet wrapper into his pocket.

The door closed behind them.

"I never knew," said Hermione, who looked tearful.

"Nor did I."

"Nor me"

"I did," Harry said. "Dumbledore told me but I promised I wouldn't tell anyone. That's what Bellatrix Lestrange got sent to Azkaban for, using the Cruciatus Curse on Neville's parents until they lost their minds."

"Bellatrix Lestrange did that?" whispered Hermione, horrified. "That woman Kreacher's got a photo of in his den?"

"Look, I didn't learn joined-up writing for nothing, you know!" came Lockhart's voice out of what seemed like nowhere. However, none of us cared what the man had to say.