The Raven and the Snake

Extra - Neville

Neville Longbottom stopped short of his parents' beds. The curtain had been drawn around the twin sickbeds which wasn't unusual, but he was surprised when he heard a voice.

The voice wasn't the soft, airy tones of the healers that worked this floor. The voice was rough and sounded as though the speaker had been crying very recently.

There was the softest shushing sound. Someone was attempting to soothe the person as they continued to speak. They weren't allowing themselves to be derailed by the kindness being shown.

"I'm sorry," the voice persisted. It was gravelly and broke a little as it pushed out the words. "I'm so sorry for what's happened to you."

Neville's heart clenched. Yes, it was a sorry thing, what had happened to his parents. Frank and Alice Longbottom, aurors and proud members of the Order of the Phoenix had been tortured to insanity shortly after his birth. He'd never really had a chance to know them as they were, but though this was the year he'd graduated secondary school, he still visited regularly.

Gran often boasted of her son's amazing talents and courage. Neville had never quite been able to live up to the expectations she'd set for him. He wasn't like his father, though he did try.

During the Battle of Hogwarts, he'd found his courage. He still wasn't as strong or clever as his Gran might have hoped, but he'd been brave.

When it seemed that all had been lost when the Chosen One – Harry Potter – had seemingly died at the hands of Lord Voldemort, Neville had stepped up. He had raised arms against the Dark Lord. Fought through the despair and called forth the courage that had made him a Gryffindor.

He'd been rewarded handsomely. His Gran had looked at him with pride and for once, he had been even more popular than the Boy That Lived. He was receiving honors now, not just from the school that he had recently graduated from, but also the Ministry of Magic. His future was looking brighter than he ever could have dreamed really.

But Frank and Alice wouldn't know. They would never know that he had upheld their legacy. That he had been brave in the face of evil and won.

No, they were still sitting docilly in their beds, just behind that curtain. He could picture them watching on blankly as whoever cried hardly made a dent in their consciousnesses.

Alice, as she was prone to doing, might attempt to cheer the crying person with a gift. The healers provided her with her favorite sweets and she often handed over the wrappings as a sort of gift. It was one of the only kindly gestures she was capable of showing these days.

Gran had never had much patience for it. She'd often crowed on about how he must have enough sweet wrappers to paper his entire room. She might even be right. It didn't matter though. He never threw them away. He had kept every single 'gift' his mother had ever given him, tucked neatly away in his room under his bed.

"I'm sorry," the voice continued to cry and Neville felt another pang of sadness when he was sure he knew who the voice belonged to.

Surely, she knew he was there now. Luna Lovegood had been closer to her and had understood her gifts better than he. She'd explained it once how Ariadne Black, a Slytherin girl a few years their senior, was a natural-born legilimens. She had the ability to hear the thoughts of the people around her.

His relationship with Ariadne had been a slightly complicated one. Not because she'd ever done anything to him. In fact, she had always treated him with kindness. She had patiently dueled with him back in the days of the DA, never complaining at his various missteps and botched spells.