The Fight Inside

As long as she stayed here, everything would be fine.

If she stayed right here, the scary things couldn't get to her.

She could look out the window and see the sun, the same sun she'd seen every day for her entire life. Whenever she got hungry, after a while they would come and bring her food. This was a good place. And it was safe. She could just stay right here in her little bed, with nothing to worry about, with safety all around, and the darkness very far away.

She remembered the darkness, but she tried not to think about it very much. She only knew that at some time, not very long ago, possibly when she was being born, there was a great darkness that covered up the whole world, and made her scared. Any time she thought about the darkness she got very scared. Then she would start to cry, and pull the soft blanket up to the side of her face, and think about other things, like bunnies and teddy bears and the smell of flowers. Until the darkness was gone again.

There were some things she didn't understand. Like why every so often the pain would come, aching pain in every part of her body like she'd just fallen down the stairs. It made her think of the dark time, and then she would cry.

She didn't think she'd always had the pain, but she wasn't really sure.

She also didn't understand why her mummy never came. Sometimes it was okay, because she would think about things or play games in her head or make up silent songs or stories, but sometimes she would wish very hard for her mummy, and she never came. Sometimes she thought mummy must have gone away and was never going to come back. Then she would cry more.

She didn't wonder why she never left her room. She knew that. It was safe here. Anywhere else the darkness might get her.

People talked to her sometimes, but she didn't really hear them very well because they were imaginary. She could tell because they weren't people she knew, they weren't the people who brought the food to her room and reminded her to wash. She figured she must have imagined them because she missed mummy, because in her imagination there was someone else in her room, someone who was sick in bed, and the woman who came was his mummy. There was sometimes a little boy with her, too, and the little boy would leave the sick person and come talk to her. She didn't understand him, so she just smiled and hoped he would stay. He was company, even if he didn't make much sense.

She wanted mummy. She was going to cry soon, she could tell, and as she started to cry she thought of something else she wanted. She had been crying out for mummy inside her head for a long time, but this was different. For a long time she had thought about this other thing, and sometimes it made her feel happy when she had started to cry. She wanted it a lot when the pain came. And somehow she knew that the people couldn't bring mummy for her, but maybe they could get her this thing. Maybe there was one about. She thought there used to be a few, in the barn perhaps, or on the porch. Maybe if she tried very hard she could even ask them, even though it was safer to stay inside her own imagination.

* * * * *

When the orderly came around that afternoon, he saw immediately that Mrs. Longbottom had been crying again. They had never been able to quiet her tears, or to understand what made her happy at some times and sad at others. But today, she looked at him with her hazy half-asleep eyes, the ones full of tears, as though she wanted to tell him something. Her thin white hand moved a little on the bed, and she licked the lips that had been dry and chapped for years. After a few labored, almost gasping breaths through her mouth he heard her whisper something.

At first he thought he'd imagined it, because Mrs. Longbottom hadn't said a word to anyone as long as he'd been at St. Mungo's, and the healers said it had been longer than that - that in fact she hadn't said a word in almost fifteen years. Plus what she'd said didn't really seem to make sense. But then she licked her lips again, and gave a little cough, and whispered once more in her dry, unused voice, "Kitten."

"Kitten?" he repeated, not sure whether to be frightened or excited. "Did you say kitten?"

Mrs. Longbottom nodded, more tears now spilling over onto her cheeks. "Kitten," she whispered a third time, more insistently, looking a bit desperate.

"You - you saw a kitten?" he asked uncertainly. No one really knew whether Mrs. Longbottom was crazy, but it was definitely looking that way. There were no cats in St. Mungo's, and none of the patients in this ward was an Animagus.

But she shook her head, and more tears flowed, and she made a gesture with her hand of petting and stroking the bed covers. "Kitten," she said again, this time almost inaudibly.

"You want a kitten?" he guessed. It was probably exciting in itself that she had responded to his question, but if she was asking for something that was definitely new.

She nodded tearfully, as though she had rather given up hope after such an effort.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. I'll - I'll ask for you, okay? I'll look for a kitten." And he ran like mad for the healer.

Later that afternoon, when older Mrs. Longbottom came to visit, she was intercepted in the hallway outside the ward by a healer. After a moment of dithering, he finally said, "Mrs. Longbottom - young Mrs. Longbottom I mean - spoke this afternoon. She spoke to the orderly and again to me."

Old Mrs. Longbottom's eyes flashed, and she asked sharply, "What did she say? Was it about -?"

"She asked for a kitten," the healer said delicately. "Actually, she just said, 'kitten,' but she nodded when we asked if that meant she wanted one."

"She wants a kitten?" the old woman repeated, looking mystified.

"Apparently." The healer glanced into the ward, where young Mrs. Longbottom was laying quietly on her bed at the end of the row.

"My daughter-in-law has spoken for the first time in fifteen years, and all she had to say was that she wanted a kitten?"

"Not so odd, really," the healer said. "Would be something for her to hold, something warm and soft and friendly. I think - I think she just wanted it very much, really, and that's why she finally asked."

"Well," Mrs. Longbottom said, with a look that clearly stated 'what are you waiting for,' "we'll get her a kitten. If she came out of her shell to ask for it, maybe it will help her." She turned around without entering the ward and called over her shoulder, "I'll be back," as she walked away.

She was back, in fact, two hours later with a large basket on her arm. She came striding up to the healer and said calmly, "I've been to Nona Riley."

"Ah," the healer said. He had no idea who that was.

Mrs. Longbottom gestured to the basket. "She said they would be less trouble when Alice is asleep if there were two, and they had each other for company. I will cast a charm to keep them confined in the area around her bed. They are small; that should be enough room for them. Your orderlies will make sure they are cared for, fed, cleaned up after, as part of their care for Alice."

The healer could do little in the face of such determined command but sputter. Of course they would look after the - kittens, presumably. If it was part of Alice's treatment.

Mrs. Longbottom's usually harsh expression softened when she saw that Alice had been crying again. No one understood why she cried occasionally, and no one understood the periodic stiffening of her limbs, and the pained look that came over her face. Mrs. Longbottom, and all the healers, had always assumed it was a remnant, a kind of phantom-pain effect from undergoing the Cruciatus Curse so many times and so intensely.

Mrs. Longbottom set the basket on the end of Alice's bed, and said firmly, "Alice. Alice, dear. I have something for you. I have your kittens here."

Alice's eyes changed in a way Mrs. Longbottom hadn't seen in fifteen years. She looked excited. Mrs. Longbottom allowed herself a sad glance over at Frank, whose facial expression had still never changed. But then she focused back on her daughter-in-law, who was actually responding to something she had said. After all, if Alice could be cured, perhaps they would know how to bring Frank back as well.

If Alice could be cured, Neville would have a mum.

Alice didn't say anything, but her eyes widened as Mrs. Longbottom lifted the lid of the basket and two pairs of little pointed ears immediately appeared. When the ears were followed by two pairs of curious eyes, and then two small inquisitive faces, Alice whispered in utter joy, "Kittens!"

"Kittens," her mother-in-law confirmed. "These are your kittens, Alice. They were a gift from Nona Riley, an old friend of yours."

The words "an old friend" made Mrs. Longbottom's throat threaten to close up. The Rileys had lived near the younger Longbottoms, and Alice had often minded little Nona. When Neville was born, Nona had held him in small, thin arms and looked with wonder on his tiny face. Nona had been eleven when Alice and Frank were hurt; she was almost ready to go to Hogwarts. Now she was a full-grown witch of twenty-six, with a house of her own on the lonely coast and her mother's talent for raising cats. She was already at an age that Alice never got to be, at least not as a normal woman.

When Nona had heard the story of Alice's request, she'd immediately picked up a grey tiger-striped kitten with a white belly that was sitting at her feet. "This is Maggie," she'd said, holding the kitten up for Mrs. Longbottom's inspection. "I found her and her brother and sister orphaned after a Muggle car killed their mother. They're the friendliest and also the quietest cats in the house. They'll sit on Alice's lap all day."

Mrs. Longbottom leaned forward to inspect the kitten, and it stretched up in Nona's grip and sniffed her, nuzzling her nose with its wet one. Mrs. Longbottom had to fight a smile. "She'll do," she said.

"You'd better have Minnie, her sister, too," Nona said. She put Maggie down and looked quickly around the room before gently pulling another grey-and-white kitten from under a table. "Here's Minnie. Maggie will be miserable without her."

Minnie had a wide-eyed, almost sad baby face, despite her constant purr. Mrs. Longbottom was reminded strongly of Alice. "You're certain?" she said to Nona. "You won't miss them?"

Nona had smiled. "I'll miss them a lot," she said. "But I have cats in and out all the time. I bring home every stray and every orphan I find. Most of them have to go to other homes eventually. I think Maggie and Minnie's brother will stay with me." She lifted a black kitten into her lap and kissed its head. "Isn't that right, Sanders? You stay with Nona, so you don't miss your sisters so much." She'd smiled up at Mrs. Longbottom, and the next thing the old woman knew she found herself Apparating back to St. Mungo's with a basketful of bouncing kittens.

Now Alice positively beamed as the two tiny kittens surveyed her over the top of the basket. The intrepid Minnie was the first to leap the side and wander up the bed to Alice's waiting arms, and Alice petted her ecstatically. Then Maggie, left alone in the basket, let out a pitiful meow and Alice leaned forward to lift her out, cuddling the kitten into her lap with Minnie and crooning to her without words. The kittens responded on cue, nuzzling Alice's face, rubbing their heads against her, twining their narrow bodies around her arms in a chorus of meowing for attention. Alice looked more alive than Mrs. Longbottom had seen her since - since.

"Alice," she said quietly. "There's a pan for them under the bed, and the basket is going right here in the corner in case they want to sleep there. Here," she handed Alice a tin of cat treats Nona had supplied, "are some treats for them. The orderlies will feed them. Do you understand?" Alice seemed to be paying no attention, but she took the treats from Mrs. Longbottom's hand and set the tin on her bedside table.

The next morning as he was eating breakfast in the Great Hall, Neville Longbottom got a letter that made him drop his bacon in surprise.

"Something wrong, Neville?" Hermione Granger asked, peering at him over the top of her Daily Prophet.

He shook his head and laid the letter down on the table. "Not - no." He glanced around, but the only other students within hearing distance were Dean and Seamus, and they weren't listening. "It's from my Gran. She said my Mum talked yesterday at the hospital."

Hermione laid her newspaper down, smiling at him. "That's great, Neville! What - what did she say?"

Neville frowned in confusion at the letter. "Gran says Mum asked for a kitten."

Now Hermione frowned. "Why? I mean, what for?"

"To be a pet, I guess," Neville said. "I don't think she wanted it for dinner, or anything."

"No, of course not," Hermione said, grimacing at the mental picture and pushing away her plate of hash. "So what else?"

"Nothing, really." Neville scanned the rest of the letter. "Gran got her two kittens and they're staying at the hospital with Mum for keeps. Mum didn't talk any more, but she really likes them, Gran says."

"That's terrific," Hermione said enthusiastically. "Maybe if the kittens make her happy, she'll start talking more."

"Maybe," Neville said. He got quiet and looked down at his plate.

"Hey," Hermione said softly, "maybe it just took her this long to get over some kind of hurdle inside her head, you know. I bet this is just the beginning."

"Maybe," Neville said again, but he was feeling better.

* * * * * * * * * *

Christmas holidays were only a few weeks away, and soon enough (or too soon) Neville found himself walking into his parents' ward in St. Mungo's. His grandmother took a seat beside his dad's bedside, and gestured firmly for him to sit with his mum.

He pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down quietly. She was asleep, and two small, very fuzzy kittens were sleeping on her chest. They were curled up like cinnamon buns, but as Neville watched, one of them yawned and stretched one white paw toward her sister. The other cat slept on.

After a moment of failure at raising her sister, the little cat opened her mouth again in a calculated "rowl?" His mum's eyes fluttered open, and her gaze fastened immediately on the lonely cat. She didn't say anything, but she picked the cat up and cradled it against her chest until it began to purr. Then her eyes picked out Neville in the visitors' chair.

"Hullo, Mum," he said softly. After a moment of awkward silence - probably awkward only for him - he added, "Those are nice kittens."

She still didn't say anything, but for the first time in Neville's memory she looked as though she'd heard him - his words, not just the noise. She gave him a tiny smile and hugged the cat closer to her. The other one twitched her ear and started to stretch.

Fumbling for something to say, now that what he said might actually matter, Neville said tentatively, "Um - can I hold one? Please?"

His mum paused for a second, then smiled again and glanced down at the kitten in her lap. Neville reached over and stroked the kitten as it woke up, and then asked, "Will she scratch me?"

His mum seemed to shake her head microscopically, so he very carefully lifted the cat off her lap. The little kitten looked at him with a face so serious it made him smile, and he cradled it gently in his arms. After a moment she gave a tiny, contented squeak and settled into his lap.

He looked back up at his mum and smiled, feeling the warm, soft fur under his fingertips. "She's just a baby, isn't she?" he asked. His mum was still smiling at him, so he went on, saying whatever came into his head. "I saw a kitten even tinier than this once. It was at our neighbor's house. They found one little kitten all by itself, too small to live alone. It must have gotten lost, or something. They brought her home, and she lived in a little box lined with an old fur." His mum looked interested, so he continued. "They tried to feed her out of a baby bottle, but it was too big for her to suck. So they gave her milk out of a dropper, like we use for potions. One little drop at a time. And she would only eat if they held her really close, so she would think her mum was there. And she got bigger and stronger and started to run around the house, and then she grew into a regular cat, and she was fine. Except she always thought our neighbor was her mum, and she would follow her around all over the place."

"Where was her mum?"

The voice was so soft and whispery that for a second Neville wasn't sure he'd heard it at all. "Sorry?" he said without thinking.

He looked in some alarm at his mum, who was licking her lips purposefully. "Where was the kitten's mum?" she whispered again. Her voice was raspy and low but it was musical to Neville, who could not remember ever hearing it before.

"Um," he said quickly, looking down at the cat in his lap. "I guess maybe she went away - or maybe she was hurt, and she couldn't come back to her kitten. Or maybe this one kitten wandered away, and her mum couldn't ever find her." His mum looked troubled at that, so he added hastily, "But probably the mother cat found her kitten a bit later, when the kitten was all grown up, and they were quite good friends."

There was another moment of quiet while they both petted the kittens, and then his mum said softly, "My mum doesn't come. I think she went away and she's not ever coming back."

Neville didn't know what to say to this. His other grandmother, his mum's mother, had died before he was born. If his mum had been right in her head, she would have remembered. He looked over at his remaining grandmother, but she was whispering something to his father and didn't see either his dilemma or the miracle of his mum speaking. Finally he said, stroking the kitten and concentrating on her purr, "My mum's gone too. She - she got hurt, and she can't get home." He buried his face in the kitten's fur for a moment and then added, "But she might come back. Sometime."

"Sometime," his mum repeated, looking down at the cat in her own lap.

Later he said goodbye and returned the second cat to her arms, and said a few words to the unmoving form of his father, and when they left it was the first time his mum didn't give him a candy wrapper. She was petting a kitten with each hand as they walked out of the ward.

* * * * *

The kittens were so warm, and so soft, and their baby faces were so adorable. And they loved her. They slept on her bed, purred in her arms, kissed her nose, and licked her hands with their rough tongues. When the pain came she cried into their fur and held them close, and they let her. The quiet one wrapped its furry body around her shoulders and hugged her with its whole self, and the other one looked at her with a troubled face and licked her tears. But she cried less, because whenever she wanted her mummy she would watch the kittens and hug them and feel better. Because she could be their mummy, and it made her happy to keep them from being sad and lonely. Best yet, the kittens knew nothing about the darkness and they weren't scared. In the night they purred on her chest, and she knew that everything was safe.

* * * * *

Certainly there was enough to worry about when Neville returned to school - Voldemort's resurfacing had everyone on edge, especially because nothing major appeared to have happened since the Department of Mysteries last year. Neville didn't like to think about that very much, nor did he like to think about Voldemort at all, and so he had ample excuse to be distracted from the problems of the rest of the world by thinking about his mum instead. Of course she was . . . the way she was, because of Voldemort. But he tried not to think of that, especially not now when he could picture her cradling her kittens like a little girl and smiling as though she actually saw him.

He was fortunate when he reached dinner on his first night back to see that Ron and Harry were engaged with the other Gryffindor boys in an animated discussion about the next Quidditch match, and that Hermione was alone at the table reading. He slid onto the bench across from her and whispered, "My mum talked to me."

He didn't think she had exactly heard him, but she looked up from her book and said, "Sorry Neville, she did what?"

"She talked to me," he repeated. "Over the holidays. I went for my visit, and she actually talked to me, and heard what I said, and everything."

"Wow," Hermione said with interest. "Really? That's great, Neville! What did you talk about?"

"Her kittens," Neville said, blushing slightly. "She started talking to me when I mentioned her kittens. Then - we talked about why they didn't have any mum, and she said - she thought her mum had gone away."

"Did she?"

"She died before my Mum went in the hospital," Neville said, concentrating on the plate of chops which had appeared between them. "Mum didn't remember."

"But she remembered you, right?" Hermione beamed across her plate. "She recognized you."

Neville felt his face growing hot, and he dropped his eyes to the table. "No," he said quietly, then cleared his throat and said more distinctly, "She didn't know me. She just talked to me like a stranger."

"Oh," Hermione said softly.

"But that's still good," he said, trying to sound more cheerful than he actually felt. "I mean, she's never talked before. At all. I didn't even know what she sounded like."

"Oh," Hermione said again. "So - so she is getting a little better."

"I guess," he said. "If she can talk - and, you know, tell us what she's thinking . . ."

"What did she exactly say?" Hermione asked, looking at him with what seemed to be new interest.

Neville didn't have to think very hard. "I was telling her about our neighbor who found and raised a baby kitten. She asked where the kitten's mum was. I said she must have gone away, and she said her own mum never came, that she thought her mum had gone away and was never coming back."

Hermione frowned. "It sounds like she does know her mother is dead."

Neville shook his head. "It wasn't like that. She didn't seem to know where her mum was. It was like she was expecting her to visit, and was getting really upset because she never showed up."

Now Hermione was biting her lip thoughtfully. "I wonder what the Muggle doctors . . . what have they done to treat your parents at St. Mungo's?"

He shrugged. "Potions. Healing spells. I think at first they also tried some weird talismans from Turkey or something, but they gave up on that a long time ago. When I was still little."

"I wonder," Hermione said. "Muggles don't have potions or anything, but Muggle doctors are actually pretty good at treating people with psychological problems. I mean - if your mum's body seems healthy, and she can talk, and eat, and walk, and everything - maybe her mind is the only thing wrong with her."

"But how can you fix that, if spells don't work?" he asked, and he hated himself for the despair he could hear in his own voice.

"You talk to her," Hermione replied. "I mean, I suppose you can't get Muggle psychiatrists into St. Mungo's, but maybe you could try helping her yourself. You could try asking her questions, about for example . . ." Then she trailed off.

"For example what?"

She shook her head. "It sounds - from what you said, it almost sounds like she's - like she's gone back to a time before she was hurt, before her mum died, before anything bad had happened to her. You could ask her stuff like - like how old she is, or what year it is, or something. Then maybe you'd know where her mind was."

A thrill of hope ran through him. "You think that might help?"

Hermione shrugged. "If you knew where she thought she was, maybe you could help her get back to now."

"I can have my Gran ask her," he said excitedly. "I'll owl her right now!"

As it turned out, Hermione affixed a note to the bottom of Neville's enthusiastic letter, explaining to Mrs. Longbottom that this was how Muggles treated such problems, that it often worked quite well, that in fact she had read something about a disorder that came from having had a very stressful experience, and that perhaps Neville's mum could be reached by the right kind of talking - especially now that the kittens had drawn her out of her shell, now that she was able to hear and respond to talk.

The owl brought Neville a reply the very next day at breakfast. His eyes met Hermione's over toast and he said in a hushed voice, "Yesterday wasn't her day to visit. Do you think she's angry?"

"Or she's excited," Hermione said. "Open it!"

With a quick glance to ensure that no one else was paying attention, Neville ripped open the envelope. The note inside was very short. It read:

Neville -

She didn't know what age she was, or the year. She became very confused and upset when I asked her about it. Perhaps I was too forceful. Miss Granger did not give instructions on the manner of my questioning. But your mother says she has never been to Hogwarts.

-Grandmother

When he showed her the letter (carefully), Hermione's first response was, "She talked a lot! She must have, to tell your Gran about Hogwarts. And not just about the kittens."

"But she thinks she's only ten. Or younger. Or else she would have been to Hogwarts."

"Maybe she just has amnesia about Hogwarts."

"Then she wouldn't have known about it at all," Neville said, feeling his stomach sink. If his mother had gone back to being a child, if she didn't remember Hogwarts or anything that had happened after, she wouldn't remember him at all. She would have forgotten he ever existed. "No wonder she never knows me," he muttered.

"But this happens to Muggles all the time!" Hermione said excitedly, barely remembering to lower her voice. "Without memory-altering charms or anything. Just because they get hurt, or they have a mental problem. And the doctors talk to them, and make them less afraid, or less hurt, or whatever, and then they help them remember. It's possible, it really is!"

"It sounds too easy," Neville said doubtfully.

"Well, of course Muggle doctors go to years of school to learn to do it. But you could try! You could make friends with her, and - and tell her she's safe now, or something like that. Talk to her about mums, and let her remember she was a mum once. You could try!"

Neville couldn't help but feel that this would all get his hopes up, and then turn out not to work at all and his mum would be just the same. Nevertheless, he found himself writing another letter to his Gran, asking to be taken from school to visit his mum again the following weekend.

* * * * *