In The Dark [Book Four]

Chapter Twelve:

Chapter Twelve: 

To say that I felt nervous would be inaccurate.  I wasn't nervous but judging by the way he grasped my hand so tightly I could nearly feel the bones cracking under the pressure, I could tell you that Neville Longbottom was.  We were stood at the entrance to St. Mungos, in line to get our visitor's pass before we could head up to see his  parents.  

I recognized the same woman who had admitted me as a visitor a couple of years ago while I was setting up Broderick Bode's death by Devil Snare and even that didn't make me on edge.  

The tiled floors squeaked under a child's shoes while he played near his parents behind us, a young woman tapped her heels relentlessly against the same floors in front of us and still, I stayed perfectly calm.  I was surprised in myself, usually I'd be yelling at both of them to stop but I could only attribute my peace of mind to the nineteen year old man standing beside me.  

We were going  to save his parents from their own minds.  St. Mungos had been told what we were here to do and they were excited, after proper testing of the cure on animals, to test it out on several of their patients.  First would be a man by the name of Gilderoy Lockhart.  He had been my first year Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and the same man I had seen on my mission to kill Bode.  I had no qualms about using my cure on someone that wasn't the Longbottom's first though originally I had and I knew for fact that Neville disliked the idea that anyone should be fixed before his parents.  But it would prove to be a good thing, for if something went wrong then at least Alice and Frank wouldn't be the ones ruined by it.  

Many of the nurses and doctors at St. Mungos planned to participate in this trial of what would be called the Remedium de Dementia, the Cure of Insanity.  A photographer for the Daily Prophet as well as Luna Lovegood for The Quibbler.  I'd spent much of my years at Hogwarts pretending to be her friend and seeing how long it could go on before she'd realize I was simply taking the mickey out of her but with her smiles at the both of us, it was hard to think she still held a grudge against me.  

She didn't seem the type.  

As we got our passes, we followed a woman who told us to call her Maggie who would lead us to Lockhart's room where we'd be surrounded by people who wanted to see whether or not I would fail or succeed. Some would be hoping for the latter but lives depending on the first of the options.  

Neither Hermione nor Ginny were with me, Harry nor Draco either.  They all knew but they'd chosen to avoid this moment, Hermione explaining hers, Ginny's and Harry's aversion to the idea of Lockhart getting cured of his amnesia.  However, Draco had no such excuse; he said he'd be here and simply hadn't shown up.  

Shrugging, I let my eyes wander the room as we stepped in before they finally settled at the handsome man who was sat on his bed reading one of his own books.. upside down.  Tilting my head at him, I let my feet drag me to his side and sit next to him as I pulled out my wand.  For the first time my heartbeat sped up, thumping in un-timed beats against my rib cage.  It created no rhythm, just another distraction from what I was trying to accomplish.  

Five, perhaps six deep breaths later, I was setting my wand directly against the temple of his skull and commanding him to be as still as he was possibly able to.  I glanced back at Neville who was forced to stand back with the rest of the crowd due to the possibility that this could back fire on anyone.  He smiled at me, his eyes showcasing their immense trust in me and my abilities.  

If this didn't work it wouldn't be the rest of the crowd that was let down the most, it wouldn't even be me; it would be him that would wind up heartbroken if this went awry.  

Muttering the incantation repeatedly, I let my wand trail around Gilderoy Lockhart's skull as a dull green glow surrounded the tip of my wand.  We'd tested this on countless animals but never on a mind so complex, never on a human before this man who sat on his bed beside me.  Never had the tip of my wand glowed green before, it had always been yellow.  

I didn't take my eyes off the man I was attempting to cure, too scared to make a single mistake.  What did green mean?  Had I done it wrong already?  

Near the end of the incantation, I lifted my wand off of the opposite temple from where I'd started and tapped Lockhart directly in the middle of his forehead, muttering the very last syllable as I did so.  The green dull glow grew inexplicably bright for a mere moment before it seemed to explode.  The force of it through my body back off of the bed where I'd been sitting and it took several moments more for me to realize that Neville had rushed to my side and was helping me sit up.  

Dazed and a bit confused if I were to be honest, I felt a warm trail of liquid trail down my nose as I lifted myself up with his help and looked to the patient.  His eyes were unfocused and his hands had lost grip on the book he'd been reading which had fallen to the ground.  Neville and I both stared at the man, waiting and hoping that this had worked; nothing could have gone wrong, I knew I had done everything perfectly.  

Never before had I been blown backwards like that, never had it glowed green before but I was sure it was simply because this was a human, not a deer or a rat or a pig, the human mind was complex and it was bound to be different than any other minds.

Almost like a light switch, the man snapped his head forward and glanced around the room, settling quickly on the reporter for the Daily Prophet.  

"Ah! You must have heard about my newest book, Dancing with a Direwolf, come come let's take a picture!"  

The man stood up and rushed over to the reporter, shaking his hand and letting the man take several photographs of him.  

"Mr. Lockhart?  What day is it? Do you remember?"  A nurse, the only one who didn't seem completely shocked at how much he'd changed in such a short amount of time.  He could hardly form proper sentences just yesterday when I'd come to visit him.  

"Why, it's got to be 30th of May isn't it?  How is young Harry Potter doing, I'd heard about his encounter with the Chamber of Secrets."   

My hand squeezed tightly onto Neville's own this time, crushing it I was sure but I couldn't find myself to care.  Did this mean we had done it?  It had worked?  The Chamber of Secrets had been in my first year, Harry had come across it in 1993, I was sure of that and he hadn't remembered that when we'd questioned him yesterday.   

"What's your full name?" 

"Gilderoy Lockhart." 

"How many books have you written?  Can you name them all?"  

"Goodness me!  I believe I've written fourteen books, that's including Dancing with Direwolves mind you, there was my autobiography, Magical Me, the Traveling Trilogy, Travels with Trolls," he kept speaking, his demeanor just as I remembered it from my first year at Hogwarts.  

I wiped the blood from under my nose, glancing up at Neville as he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly to his body as if terrified I would evaporate into thin air.  "Are you all right?  You're bleeding, I hadn't noticed before." 

I nodded, thinking of a good response before replying.  

"A human mind is harder to predict, it's a veritable multiplex, and each mind will react differently.  I'll be fine.  Let's finish the testing here and then we'll be able to know how to help your parents."  

With Doctor Celestiel using her magic to decide whether or not we had truly saved Gilderoy Lockhart from his mind, we had nothing more to do than wait quietly and hope.  If the results came back and said we hadn't done it, not truly, then we would have to go back to the testing phase and remake the cure all over again; however if I had managed to do it properly the first time then Neville would have his family back.  

We had all lost enough over the last two years, it was time for some of us to get our lives back.  

[[A/N: okay i dont know if i like this or not, i dont know if i like what direction its heading in and i dont know what i want to happen now that its the end of the book!  probably 1 or 2 more chapters and then the epilogue.  i have the epilogue partially planned out already so that's always nice.   you guys can thank P!atD's VICTORIOUS and Nothing More's JENNY for me being able to write so many chapters the last week or so.  they really help me want to write.]]