The Light in the Dark | Neville Longbottom

Chapter 80: Traitor

*CW: Mentions the Events of Chapter 79, Violence, and Gore*

July 28th, 1997

Maybe it was because I just got tasked with killing my best friends... or that I was horcrux... or that Voldemort was my father... or the nine snake bites... but I didn't apparate back to the Tonk's safe house.

I ended up in an alley in the middle of London.

"Shit... shit... shit... shit!" I panicked, scanning my surroundings.

There was no sense of relief that extruded from my body. If anything, my emotions only worsened after leaving the cave. I was still terribly injured and shaken up due to the entire encounter; processing anything was near impossible.

Voldemort was my father, and he manipulated Bellatrix into birthing me so he could have the ultimate weapon: eternal life. I knew that horcruxes were made for eternal life, but none of it was truly guaranteed. Harry's destroyed a horcrux before, so Voldemort must have known that these artificial objects were destructible. This would have explained the cave Harry told me about as well; the one that required blood magic to enter its premise...

Blood magic.

I wasn't too familiar with it.

It always made me queasy.

Blood magic didn't always involve the actual substance, it also included family; sometimes, love was considered blood magic... and, of course, blood curses as well.

Family-blood magic was a gateway for protection between two people. Hypothetically, if a protection spell was performed on two people of the same first-generational blood, the spell became everlasting. This meant that when Voldemort performed the horcrux procedure onto me, not only did I provide protection for him, but he provided protection for me... for eternity.

That was his secret for eternal life.

My heart raced faster and faster as I sat on my knees in the middle of the alley. The alley was compacted, almost suffocating me; it felt as though the walls caved in with every inhale. My lungs grew dense as I ran my fists along the rough gravel, creating cuts on the skin.

I didn't care that I was bleeding. There was no time to care for it.

The more I panicked, the more my magic rampaged. Voldemort had it concealed while I was experiencing a wild wave of emotions, leaving it to be released the moment I left. There was a tingling sensation that ran through my body as my mind went dark.

For a split second, I felt the same way I did the day Dumbledore died... while I was battling Bellatrix.

The next thing I knew... I let out an ear-piercing scream.

Moments later, shattered glass from the windows of the surrounding alley buildings covered the ground. Five burglar alarms had been set off as well and blared through the streets.

What happened in between?

I didn't know.

"Hey, what's going on back there?" an approaching voice asked.

"Did you hear that?" another voice questioned.

Panicked, I quickly pulled myself together and apparated to the alley across the street. When I appeared, I noticed a crowd of muggles gathering near the vacant alley. I backed myself away from them, disappearing into the darkness of the new alley.

Innocent people stuck their heads out the windows I destroyed, all equally confused as to what just happened. Bystanders talked relentlessly about what might have caused it. They couldn't have assumed that a witch did it, right?