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2nd May, 1998
The sword hangs heavy at his side, his breath loud and jarring to the ears that ring with explosions. Sweat and dirt drag at his temples, his heartbeat racing.
It is over.
Afterwards, the Great Hall is nothing but an enormous hospital wing. Healers scurry like ants between the wounded, magic cross-hatching the air.
People grin and clap him on the shoulder, but he walks alone. Most people are celebrating the fall of the Dark Lord.
But Neville cannot stop thinking about Bellatrix Lestrange.
The woman who altered the entire course of his life is dead – and he had thought that it would feel better than this, that he would feel different, somehow.
The celebrations echo in his hollow chest.
His parents have been avenged.
So why does he feel so empty?
They sleep in a pile of interwoven limbs on the floor of the Great Hall.
Seamus’ head lies squarely against Neville’s knee, Luna’s hair a tangled mop across his hand. And there are so many more of them, connected in a haphazard daisy-chain of triumph.
But Bellatrix is dead.
And Neville doesn’t know how to feel.
“Nev, wake up!”
He blinks open exhausted eyelids. Seamus grins toothily, his face swollen from the Carrows’ abuse. “There’s news!”
“What-?”
“Someone broke into Gringotts! And there’s all this crazy talk – about a dragon-”
He clambers blearily to his feet. There are people all around, curtains and cushions in red and yellow and blue-
Hammocks are strung from the ceiling-
A radio in the corner crackles with excitement-
“-rumours of a dragon breaking through the roof of Gringotts Bank-”
“Do you think it’s Harry?!” Lavender gasps.
Neville frowns. “Of course it was-”
“What?”
“Ariana’s here!” someone yells.
And Neville spins on the spot in the Room of Requirement. “What happened?” he asks groggily, but Seamus is there, shoving him towards the portrait where Ariana beckons.
“Go,” he says. “See what Aberforth wants.”
And blind obedience sends Neville stumbling into the tunnel while his brain roars with disorientation. How did he get here? What is he doing?
He staggers forwards, dread creeping up his limbs with every step.
And then the tunnel bottoms out and there’s the Hog’s Head, where none other than Harry, Ron, and Hermione are waiting.
He stares blankly while their faces lift with shock and joy.
“Neville! What the – how?!”
Déjà vu cripples him, and he sways suddenly.
“Are you alright?” frowns Hermione.
“I didn’t – I didn’t expect-”
“Sorry for not owling ahead,” Ron jokes.
Neville can feel the blood draining from his face. “What are you doing here?” he whispers.
“We need to get into the castle,” urges Harry. “We don’t have much time-”
Fear ripens like poisonous fruit in Neville’s gut. He sways too far.
And everything goes dark.
He pleads with the silence when he wakes.
Let this be a hallucination. A stress dream. Anything. Just don’t be real.
But the cold stone floor bites his skin, his limbs ache, and there is a pressure behind his eyes that intensifies when he lifts his head.
“Good, you’re awake,” grunts Aberforth. “Funny turn you took there-”
“Where’s Harry?”
The innkeeper shrugs. “Gone through.”
“Is it happening? The battle?”
Aberforth just frowns.
And Neville charges desperately into the tunnel without waiting for an answer.
His mind grapples with impossibilities.
He’s living through yesterday again. And it’s the same – exactly the same.
He can’t make sense of it, but he’s blindingly aware that it doesn’t matter, because it’s the second of May, and Voldemort is coming. So he puts it all away, numbs it to the back of his mind, and keeps going.
The Room of Requirement is not the hive of activity he had expected, but is instead full of nervous, chattering students.
“Where’s Harry?” Neville asks, and Seamus startles.
“He’s got something he needs to do, apparently-”
“And they didn’t ask for help?”
“They said they’ll tell us what to do later,” Seamus frowns. “Are you alright, mate?”
Neville’s heart thuds. “Where’s Luna? Ginny?”
“You know where,” says Seamus. “Why, did you want to summon them?!”
And terrified realisation clutches Neville’s heart. He hasn’t called the DA back. Luna can’t tell them about the Diadem. Harry won’t go to the Ravenclaw tower. He will not meet McGonagall. The teachers will not be protecting the castle.
But Voldemort is still getting closer.
Neville grabs at his pockets, overcome with relief when he finds the DA Galleon, and in a matter of moments he’s sending out the message he was supposed to send half an hour ago.
“Listen up!” he yells, and everyone turns his way. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming.”
“Neville, what-”
“Listen!” he shouts desperately. “We haven’t got much time. We need to get everyone here, now, and we need to protect the castle while Harry does… his thing. We need to find McGonagall, tell her what’s happening – oh, Merlin, Snape will still be here – we need to evacuate the younger years-”
“You’ve gone nuts,” says Terry, flabbergasted. “Harry told us to wait here-”
“Well, does anyone know where he went?” Neville hisses desperately.
Panicked silence greets him.
“Get the underage students out,” he commands. “Please. And if you know any defensive magic at all, start using it now. Protect the castle. Summon the Order. Get ready to fight. And stay safe.”
The shocked crowd slowly stirs into action, but Neville doesn’t have time to feel relieved.
He has to find Harry.
As it happens, Amycus Carrow finds him first.
“You!” he roars.
And then Neville is running for his life, pelting through the castle that doesn’t yet know it is under attack.
He doesn’t trust himself to produce a Patronus, so he instead focuses on casting as many jinxes as possible while he runs towards the nearest safe place he can think of – McGonagall’s office.
He reaches the door and flings himself through while McGonagall leaps to her feet in shock. He slams the door shut, and though it doesn’t buy them much time, it is enough for McGonagall to confront Amycus when he blasts his way inside.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demands. The Death Eater’s face contorts.
“He’s caused us nothing but trouble this year,” he snarls. “Step aside-”
“I will not permit you to harm a student-”
“I don’t care what you’ll permit-” And he spits in her face.
Immediately, there’s a ripple of something from the doorway, and Harry is there, peeling off the invisibility cloak with a Cruciatus curse that hurls Amycus’ body backwards. “You shouldn’t have done that,” Harry growls.
“Potter!” gasps McGonagall.
Amycus slams his finger against the Dark Mark on his forearm, McGonagall’s stunning spell hitting just a moment too late.
And then Neville watches in numb silence as Harry explains the time he needs, as McGonagall wakes the other teachers and readies the castle for defence.
Harry is about to charge off again when Neville grabs him. “The lost diadem of Ravenclaw,” he says determinedly. “Talk to the Grey Lady.”
He can see that Harry thinks he’s lost his marbles, but he nods, and that’s all Neville needs.
He’s done it.
And now he throws himself into battle.
He helps Professor Sprout protect the castle, he sends spell after spell into the melee, he fights for his life all over again.
He carries the bodies of his fallen friends all over again.
He listens when Harry tells him to kill the snake, doesn’t stop him going to the forest. Doesn’t panic when his lifeless body is brought back again. He plays his role perfectly, defying Voldemort until the sword of Gryffindor appears – thank Merlin – and one stroke sends Nagini’s head spinning into the air.
Harry disappears, and Neville makes sure to retrace his steps – knocking out this Death Eater here, helping this student there – and he thinks he is managing well until a high-pitched shriek of laughter calls his attention.
He whips around to see Bellatrix, the insanity practically radiating from her body.
She is still here.
White-hot hatred fills his gut, the fury ripping through every cell. This anger could split him apart piece by piece, if he lets it.
And that’s right when Molly Weasley steps up, just as she is supposed to, and casts the curse that stops Bellatrix’s heart.
He is still numb, but it doesn’t stop him from watching as Harry finally reveals himself, leading to the duel that finally, finally, brings an end to the worst day of Neville’s life.
Again.
“Nev, wake up!”
Seamus is calling him. Behind him, the Room of Requirement is as cluttered as Neville remembers it.
“-rumours of a dragon breaking through the roof of Gringotts-”
“No,” Neville whispers. “No, no, no-”
“But this is great!” roars Seamus. “It’s Harry! You might be right after all – maybe he’s coming back!”
Neville wants to run away.
But he can’t risk this war ending any other way than it is supposed to.
And so despite the exhaustion drowning him, he drags himself to the surface, and this time he sends the Galleon message before he does anything else. He does his best to repeat his actions exactly as he had the first time around, and by the time he’s watching Bellatrix’s demise, fingers aching with the futile, vengeful need to make her hurt , he’s almost convinced that this time, he will be able to move on to the third of May.
He is so unbelievably tired.
“Nev, wake up!”
He can’t do this again. He can’t.
This time, he doesn’t care about retracing his steps. He doesn’t care about putting it right. He legs it out of the castle – avoiding the corridors where he now knows Amycus is prowling – and is so intent on getting as far away as he possibly can that he forgets about the Dementors stationed at every entrance.
They surround him, and panic descends so rapidly that he can’t breathe.
There are creatures in the Forbidden Forest; small, manic things with red eyes and greedy hands, and they watch in eager silence as Neville collapses under the weight of his greatest fears.
The sound of screams, a cackle of pure insanity, the vacant eyes of his parents staring past him, never to recognise him again, the hopeless need for vengeance, for retribution-
His wand sparks feebly.
And then, nothing.
“Nev, wake up!”
Hot, vivid relief courses through his veins. And simultaneously deep, dark despair.
Something is stopping him from moving on.
“-roof of Gringotts bank-”
“Do you think it’s Harry?!”
Neville locks eyes with Lavender Brown and realisation shoots through him.
What if he could save a life?
The first person he saves is Colin Creevey. Neville shoves him down with a shout, and Colin blinks as the killing curse sails freely over his ear.
Fred Weasley is flung out of harm’s way.
Lavender Brown is pulled from Fenrir’s jaws.
Neville is unstoppable.
But the sense of victory doesn’t last long.
Lavender meets her fate at Bellatrix’s hands, Fred is swept from the seventh floor by a giant’s fist, and Colin is killed by a rogue explosion.
Yet again, Neville carries his tiny, broken body away from the battle.
He stops trying to be a hero, after that.
And so it continues. Again and again and again.
The fear rises like bile with every passing day.
Sometimes he does everything right.
Sometimes he makes a million mistakes, failing to save any of the people he loves.
Sometimes, he just breaks down.
And yet as long as he directs Harry to the diadem, warns McGonagall to protect the castle… it is still Harry who emerges victorious.
Bellatrix still dies.
And Neville still feels numb.
The hope of ever making it to the 3rd of May flickers smaller and smaller in his chest, until eventually he has no choice but to consider another way out.
Perhaps Harry was never supposed to win.
He has been fighting the same battle for months. Neville is exhausted, physically and mentally. His skin is mottled with bruises and his bones are stiff from being broken and mended so many times over again. And he has no idea how to move on.
And so he climbs to the highest point of the castle, hides from view, and watches the battle unfold without him.
Luna doesn’t get to the castle in time, so Harry is too busy searching for an unknown horcrux to save Draco Malfoy when a Death Eater raises his wand. And maybe that’s why Narcissa and Lucius flee the battle early, why it is Bellatrix who checks Harry’s pulse and finds him alive.
Harry is certainly dead, now, when Hagrid carries him back to the castle. Neville’s lack of a warning to the DA means that Hogwarts has been horrifically unprotected in the face of Voldemort’s advances. And the casualties are so great that no one steps up in Neville’s place to defy the Dark Lord.
He is tiny up here, powerless to stop it all as the remaining fighters are subdued, are led away until the only sound is the faint ringing of a gleeful laugh.
Bellatrix has survived the battle.
And Neville finally feels something.
Hopelessness, devastation, agony. Grief for his fallen friends, the ones he couldn’t save, the ones he watched die over and over again, the ones he carried from the battlefield. His shame, his fear, his regret.
And his bruising, blistering loathing for Bellatrix Lestrange, for the woman who stole a lifetime of love and family and security from him, who has taunted and tormented him all these years.
He will never get to make her pay for what she did.
The morning breaks, the sun rises, and where blood has been spilt over the castle grounds, creatures begin to crawl out from the forest.
Centaurs roam across the courtyard, marking grim observance over what has come to pass. The Acromantula feast on any remains they can find. Dementors suck any remaining life from the battlefield.
And Neville watches, still, from his perch.
Those creatures from the forest are back again, and this time their name springs to his mind – Red Caps. Their tiny bodies scurry between the corpses below, plucking at hair and threads of fabric. Their sharp nails slice into cold skin, and their shrieks of vengeance cut the air like knives.
And for one crazy, wild moment, Neville is one of them, a creature with unkempt hair and sallow skin, and his mind is filled with visions of his talons clawing into Bellatrix’s flesh. He demands her to pay for what she did, what she has stolen from him. And when the life trickles from her eyes, pooling red across the dirt, Neville’s hands scrabble into it, absorbing the recompense for all her crimes.
He stirs upright.
The Red Caps slink off again into the darkness, dragging corpses into the night.
Red, for revenge.
He can’t take his eyes off them. Blood smears across the flagstones, and Neville is suddenly praying for another second of May.
“Nev, wake up!”
He has never been more glad to see Seamus’ face.
He is on his feet immediately, Galleon in hand, regardless of the aches and bruises suffocating his body.
And as he rockets through the passageway towards the Hog’s Head, he has a plan in mind.
Harry, Ron and Hermione are as thrilled to see him as ever, but Neville wastes no time in idle chatter.
He can’t get back to the castle fast enough.
Luna, Cho, and Ginny are already here. And Neville plays his part, says what he needs to say, ostensibly the same as he was before any of this. But he is changed.
Luna and Harry leave in search of the diadem, and Neville’s body itches with impatience.
Soon.
He barely hears McGonagall as she issues instructions, heading straight up to the battlements to assist Professor Sprout.
His determination only falters at the sight of Colin Creevey running the wrong way through the fleeing crowd, tiny head ducking between shoulders.
Neville catches his arm.
“You should go,” he says quietly. But there is a fire in Colin’s eyes, and Neville knows he cannot be saved. And so he squeezes his arm, a lump in his throat.
“You’re so brave,” is all he can say.
And then Colin has melted from view.
And Neville continues walking, banishing everything from his mind except his singular goal for revenge.
Everything is happening just the way it did the first time around, and it is as if Neville is on autopilot. His wand seems to operate on its own, anticipating every curse, dodging every attack, while grim determination oozes through his veins.
“Harry Potter is dead.”
The insidious words fuel a delicious sort of excitement in Neville’s gut. And there is something primal arching up inside him at the sight of the approaching Death Eaters, a desperate need to exact revenge, to finally make Bellatrix pay for all she has done-
But first. He has a job to do.
He races forwards, heart pounding. “I’ll join you when hell freezes over,” he shouts at Voldemort, at the man he has seen die hundreds of times already. “Dumbledore’s Army!”
Bellatrix bares her teeth, wild hair tangling across her face with every frenzied puff of breath.
Does she know the fate she will meet?
Does she know how much he aches for it? Burns for it?
There is something cold and glittering in her eyes as the Sorting Hat is yanked down over his head.
And he thinks she does.
The head of Nagini spins high above the crowd with his swordswing, but Neville’s eyes are made only for Bellatrix, absorbing every one of her last moments like nectar.
Even the chaos that reigns isn’t enough to break the lock of their gazes.
And Neville steps forward slowly. The tip of the sword of Gryffindor sparks against the cobbles.
Perhaps in another life, he could have been the Chosen One after all.
Bellatrix just laughs at him. “Back for another try?”
She raises her wand mockingly, but wavers when he casts a knockback jinx so powerful it gusts her hair away from her face.
It makes her look even more deadly.
But all Neville sees is red. He is wild, crazed, some feral beast from the forest, hell-bent on murder, just as mad as Bellatrix herself.
His wands slashes forward and deep red welts spring up across her face. Her mouth twists, and then they are duelling, and they know that someone will die tonight.
When she turns and begins to run, he chases her, and then they are racing towards the Forest with light pulsing from their wands. Any other day, she could have beaten him, but not today, not when he is no longer a boy, but a man.
It only takes her one stumble, and then Neville is ripping her wand from the air, brandishing it like an executioner’s axe.
Her eyes are wide.
All around them the forest stirs, and Neville knows they are being watched by hundreds of creatures.
“Go on!” she shrieks. “Cast the Cruciatus. I know you want to!”
His fingers clench.
“Go on,” she cackles, and she’s grinning now, thin lips drawn back over pale gums. “Get your revenge. Do it!”
It takes all of his strength to lower his wand.
The red drains from view.
“No,” he says quietly. “I’m not like you.”
Tiny faces peer out from between the trees, eyes hooded and malevolent. They know what is about to happen, and they are waiting.
Neville’s wrist arcs. "Avada Kedavra."
And green light jets out from his wand, hitting Bellatrix squarely in the chest.
She slumps to the ground.
And just like that, it’s over.
He turns sharply and vomits onto the earth.
And then he is crying, loudly, uncontrollably, uncaring who or what sees him.
He has been waiting for this day for fifteen years.
The Red Caps slink out from the bushes, and they pounce on Bellatrix’s lifeless body, yanking her hair, daubing their clothes with her blood, reclaiming her evil.
Neville takes one last look at her, allows himself one final moment of hatred.
And then he walks away.
The numbness is gone. His chest is solid, and inside it, his heart is real and warm and beating.
3rd May, 1998
Neville wakes as if he has been asleep for centuries. His limbs are sore, eyes dry, throat burning.
But he lies in a pile of fellow students on the floor of the Great Hall, and the soft snores and murmured conversations are the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard.
He gets to his feet, and his shaky steps take him out of the castle, out along the decimated bridge.
His parents will not understand. But he will tell them anyway.
It is finally over.
How does a war end?
For Neville Longbottom, it is with vengeance.
