The Fight Inside

This time when Neville walked into his parents' ward at St. Mungo's, his mum appeared to be playing a game with the kittens. She was dangling a piece of yarn for them, and they were leaping about on the bed trying to catch it. As he approached (passing his unmoving father without looking very hard), one of them jumped so far that she fell off the bed in a flutter of legs and tail. Her little head poked back up a moment later, and she jumped back onto the bed.

His mum looked up when she saw him coming, and he could have sworn she smiled at him. As he took his customary place next to the bed, he remembered Hermione telling him not to push the fact that he was her son if his mum wasn't ready to remember. His voice shaking a bit, he said, "Hi - um - Alice." A quick glance told him that his grandmother, sitting quietly again with his father, hadn't heard.

His mum smiled again, then laughed silently as the other kitten also took a tumble off the bed. Encouraged, he added, "I was here last week, remember? I was here playing with the kittens. I'm Neville."

If he had hoped that his name would spark some sort of recognition in his newly-aware mum, he was disappointed. But she did hold out the piece of yarn to him.

"Oh," he said. "Should - can I play?" He took the yarn and dangled it over the bed, grinning despite himself as the kittens chased it. One of them overshot and landed in his lap, where she remained, batting at the yarn as though she were too tired to chase anymore. "She's really nice," he said as the kitten rolled over onto its back and looked up at him thoughtfully.

"Pet her," his mum said in the same raspy voice he remembered.

"What?" he said, too caught off-guard to comprehend.

It seemed as though his mum had to concentrate very hard before she could produce the words, but after a moment she murmured, "She wants you to rub her belly."

"Oh." He wriggled one fist under the kitten's chin and rubbed her white belly, ignoring the pointy claws that extended as she stretched in happiness. "Aw, she likes it," he said in delight, glancing up at his mum. "She's purring."

"She purrs loud."

"Yeah, she does," he said, almost forgetting for a second that he was having an impossibly strange conversation. When he looked up again, his mum was studying the other kitten which had settled down in her lap. He remembered the other things he and Hermione had talked about, and he cleared his throat and said tentatively, "She almost looks like Professor McGonagall. In her Animagus form, I mean."

He waited hopefully. His mum said, casually, as though there were nothing out of the ordinary about her statement, "I've never seen Professor McGonagall. But Molly says she's a tabby."

Neville thought his heart might have stopped for a moment. "Who's Molly?" he managed to ask calmly.

"Molly Prewett, silly! Don't you even know her? Her father works at the Ministry."

He was completely taken aback by the sudden liveliness of his mother's tone. He had to keep her talking like this, whatever else happened. "Is she a friend of yours?"

"Sort of," his mum replied shyly, looking down at the bedcover. "She's bigger than I am. She goes to Hogwarts already."

"How old is she?" he asked.

His mum frowned. "I guess she's eleven," she said. "It might have been her birthday, but I don't know. I haven't seen her in a while," her voice lowered and she began to look a bit sad, "since I came in my room. It's safe here." Suddenly she seemed to see Neville again. "Is that why you're here?"

"Um," he said. "I just came here to visit you and the kittens."

"Oh," his mum replied. "Molly doesn't visit," she said casually. "Last holiday she didn't even come to our house at all. She went to play with the Corrigans and the Weasleys."

Neville nearly fell out of his chair at this mention of someone he knew - sort of. "What - which Weasleys?" he asked.

"Don't you know the Weasleys either?" His mum seemed to have forgotten about safety and people not visiting for the moment, for which he was grateful. "They have four boyss. Bilius and Ralph and Walter and Arthur." The names tripped off her tongue as though she had seen the boys yesterday, but Neville was busy noticing the final name.

"Arthur?" he repeated faintly. "Does - does Arthur have red hair?"

"Of course," his mum laughed. "He is a Weasley. Although Molly has red hair too, and she's not a Weasley."

"Not yet," Neville muttered under his breath. He filed away this piece of information for future use: if his mum thought Mrs. Weasley was eleven, and he could find out what the age difference was between them, he might know how old his mum thought she was. Maybe.

"So," he said aloud, "I reckon you'll go to Hogwarts someday, too."

"Do you go there?" she asked, and then went on without waiting for an answer, "I'll go if I'm not a Squib. But I don't think I am. I haven't done very much accidental magic, but once I fell off the porch and I bounced right back up!"

"Did you?" Neville said weakly. For some reason he thought he might cry.

His mum's eyes clouded over again, and she said softly, "But maybe I won't go to Hogwarts. It might not be safe. Maybe I'll just stay here."

"Hogwarts is pretty safe," Neville said softly, trying to make himself truly believe it. "With Professor Dumbledore . . ."

But his mum wasn't listening anymore. Her eyes had closed tightly and a sweat was breaking out on her forehead. She ran a hand over her limp white hair and then buried it in the kitten's fur, screwing her face up in a pained expression. Her body went stiff and tears ran from her eyes, but she didn't speak another word.

"Gran!" Neville called quietly, depositing the kitten he still held onto his mum's lap. "Gran! Mum's . . ."

"I know," his Gran replied, coming to his side. "She's having one of her spells. Nothing seems to make it any better, you know that. Perhaps if you wet that cloth and placed it across her forehead."

He did, but it didn't make any difference. He and his Gran sat in silence for five, ten minutes watching her, and then after a while the pained expression smoothed out and she was asleep.

Neville turned to his grandmother wanting to say something important, profound, but what came out instead was, "Gran? How much older than my mum is Mrs. Weasley?"

"Molly Weasley?" His grandmother frowned heavily. "Five years or so, I think."

"And - did she and my mum know each other, when they were young?"

"I think they must have," his Gran said after a moment. "The Prewetts weren't wealthy or prominent, but they were well-known, even before . . . well, you know." She missed the expression that flashed across her grandson's face at the sound of Molly's maiden name.

* * * * * * * * * *

"She's six," Neville said to Hermione the next time he saw her alone. "My mum. She thinks she's six. She talked about Mrs. Weasley as a little girl in her first year at Hogwarts. My mum says she may never come to Hogwarts because it might not be safe. She says her room is safe." He spit all this out in a rush of depression.

"Her room at St. Mungo's?" Hermione asked. "Does she know she's in hospital?"

"No. I think she means her bedroom, like at home. Her own room, when she was little."

"Interesting," was all Hermione said for the moment. "Nothing ever happened to her there, did it?"

"Not that I know of," Neville replied, not understanding.

"So she feels safe." Hermione was quiet for a few moments, thinking hard. They were in the common room, with probably a minute or two before the other Gryffindors started coming down for breakfast, and Hermione's cat was winding around and around Neville's legs. He patted the cat absently, thinking his mum's cats were much better-looking.

"Well," Hermione said finally. "I think I know what you have to do, but . . ."

"I can do anything it takes," he said forcefully, cutting her off before she could point out that he wasn't always the most competent of wizards.

"I know," she said gently, and he flushed with embarrassment. "I just mean - well I haven't studied psychology or anything, I might have it all wrong."

He never thought he'd ever hear Hermione Granger say anything like that, but this wasn't the time. "What do you think I should do?" he asked.

"I'm not sure . . ." Hermione said, looking over into the fire. "But I think you have to convince her - slowly - that she's safe in the here and now - that it's safe for her to be Alice, in her thirties, in her room at St. Mungo's; that she'd be safe if your Gran took her home to your house."

"Would she be?" Neville asked, looking her straight in the eye.

Hermione swallowed. "I guess I don't know," she said honestly. "But . . . but isn't she safer if she remembers how to defend herself?"

"I didn't think of it like that."

They were both distracted by the sound of feet on the stairs from the girls' dormitory, and then two little first-year girls - an unlikely pair of best friends called Roísín and Tzipporah - tumbled happily into the common room. They hesitated when they saw Hermione and Neville, but then quickly muttered "morning!" to the two sixth-years and ran out of the portrait hole toward breakfast.

When they were gone Neville turned back to Hermione to say that they should probably get to breakfast, that Ron and Harry would be down looking for her, but he was surprised to see that she had the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Hermione?" he said instead.

She crossed her arms and continued to look watch the portrait hole where the two first-years had disappeared, and he thought he knew what was wrong. "I'm sure it'll be fine," he said tentatively. "Dumbledore wouldn't let anything happen here - I mean, he wouldn't let them fight here or anything."

"He might not be able to stop it," Hermione said, ignoring her cat which was now whining loudly against her leg. "And even if it doesn't come to Hogwarts - we know during the last war they attacked whole families. I - I don't feel very old myself, but they're just babies. And you know Tzipporah's Muggle-born, and so are so many of the others . . ."

Like you, Neville added silently. He hadn't thought of it, but Hermione must be fearing what would happen to her parents if the Death Eaters started attacking Muggle-born students at home. He wondered for a moment whether he should get Ron or Harry - whether she talked like this with Ron and Harry - and instead ended up reaching one arm toward her in an awkward half-offer of a hug; then he drew his arm back hastily; then he reached it out again. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd been saying during that time, but he had a feeling it was something like "er . . . ah . . ."

Hermione looked over at him, then stood and came over to his chair and hugged him. He stood up so that he could hug her back properly, and she whispered a bit uncertainly, "Thanks, Neville."

"Thank you," he said as they both pulled back. "For trying to help my mum."

The cat darted up the stairs toward the boys' dormitory, and a minute later came back down weaving in and out of Ron Weasley's legs. "Oi, Hermione," Ron called across the room, "I think Crookshanks is hungry, or else he's just trying to trip me."

Hermione cleared her throat and replied, "He's been fed. I'll bring him some bacon from breakfast, but he's getting a bit heavy, aren't you, Crookshanks?"

"A bit heavy?" Ron repeated as he finally managed to get down the stairs. "Great bloody tiger."

"Be nice," Hermione said. Harry was coming down the stairs now, and she called, "All right?"

"All right," Harry replied. He didn't look great, but Neville hadn't heard him thrashing about last night, so that had to be a good thing. Harry's sleep disturbances had become a fact of life in the Gryffindor sixth-year boys' dormitory, although he did seem to be sleeping better of late. Neville wasn't stupid enough to think this meant that the danger from Voldemort was lessening.

He followed quietly as Ron and Harry led Hermione off to breakfast, at that moment thinking more about her than about his mum. She had always been so nice to him, ever since he first met her on the Hogwarts Express, but while she could help him a great deal he had never presented her with enough of a challenge. Whatever exactly had happened in their first year, it had made her Ron and Harry's.

* * * * * * * *

Ordinarily a student would not be allowed to leave school as often as twice a month, but Neville's grandmother had had a long talk with Dumbledore about him visiting his parents. Dumbledore had been surprisingly open to the idea that Neville could be better for his mother than the healers were. Either that, or he just wanted Neville away from the school two Saturdays a month. Neville preferred to be optimistic.

The next time he saw his mum, she was asleep when he entered the ward. He didn't know how she managed to sleep, because the kittens were wrestling on the end of her bed. They rolled over and over in total silence, pouncing gleefully and indiscriminately on each other and his mum's feet. When he sat down in his usual chair, one of them jumped into his lap and sniffed eagerly at his face. Her sister remained on the bed calmly licking her paw, as though she had fully intended for the wrestling match to be over.

"Hi there," he said to the cat on his lap, which now had both of her front paws on his shoulders to facilitate the Neville-sniffing. "You're much prettier than Hermione's cat. For one thing, you have a nose." The cat replied by butting her head under his chin until he started to pet her.

After he'd spent a few minutes petting the kitten and rubbing her belly, he noticed his mum stirring. The other kitten noticed too, and leapt instantly onto Alice's chest.

"Hi Alice," he said softly. His dad appeared to be sleeping in the next bed.

Her eyes focused on him and she waved shyly. "Remember me?" he said. "Neville?"

"You go to Hogwarts," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Er . . . do you want to sit up? I could help you . . ."

She responded by lifting her shoulders, so he leaned over and lifted her gently, pulling her pillows up against the wall.

"Better?" he asked.

She nodded. "You came back to visit," she stated.

"I - I wanted to talk to you some more," he said. The kitten on his lap had draped herself over his shoulder and was purring loudly. Now what? he thought. He should have asked Hermione what he should tell his mum about the world to make her feel safe. "Er . . ." he began, "it's really nice out today. Do you ever like to go outside?"

His mum looked pale, and she shook her head gently. "I used to play outside sometimes," she said. "But that was before the darkness." She stopped and looked confused for a moment. "I guess - I guess the darkness wasn't that long ago. I thought it was when I was a baby. But it can't . . . I remember before . . ."

Torn between six questions, Neville asked, "What was the darkness?"

"It was bad," she said, sounding agitated. "Everything was all dark. I don't remember . . . I don't like to talk about that." Her nose wrinkled, and she looked as though she might start crying at any second.

Mentally kicking himself, Neville asked instead, "What do you remember before the darkness?"

There were a few seconds of silence, and then she said brightly, "I played outside with Grania and Fiona and Mairead and they had a new baby, her name was Kathleen. Their cats chased the gnomes."

"We have gnomes in our garden, too," Neville said.

"And one time we went to watch their uncle Septimus play Quidditch," she continued. "Their dad almost got hit by a Bludger and there was a bad boy named Severus who said he was going to hex Mairead, but he didn't really have a wand. He was smaller than me."

Neville didn't think he could handle any more revelations. "Is that the only time you've seen . . . Severus?" he asked.

"I remembered him," his mum said. "He was such a horror at school, I remembered him as soon as I saw him. Hexed another first-year on the train."

Neville's eyes widened, but his mum didn't seem to notice what she had said.

"The Gryffindor boys were always teasing him, but he got back at them. Molly once found him . . ." It seemed to be the mention of Molly that made her pause. After a moment she said, "No, that's wrong. I've never - that must have been - Molly must have told me . . ." She trailed off into silence, looking confused again.

Neville couldn't decide whether he should be excited or terrified that he'd scared her and messed everything up. He settled for asking, "What are . . . Mairead and Grania doing now?"

"Grania is my age exactly," his mum said. "We have our birthdays a week apart. Mairead's only small, so she doesn't do anything really. Grania and I have lessons but Mairead doesn't have to. We have . . ." Her brow furrowed, and she said, "We haven't had lessons in a long time. Grania doesn't come to play . . ."

"Who else do you play with?" Neville asked quickly, before she got confused again.

"Vanessa . . . Laura . . . Cassie . . . there are a lot of wizarding families where we live. I'm not allowed to play with Muggles. Mummy says Muggles aren't bad, but I might accidentally tell a secret. Muggles aren't supposed to know about magic."

"Yeah," Neville said. "One of my friends is completely Muggle-born. She didn't know anything about magic when she got her Hogwarts letter. I guess her parents know about it now. I guess maybe they tell her neighbors that she goes to boarding school or something."

"Lily's parents used to tell people she went to a special school for gifted children in Switzerland," his mum giggled. "Lily was Muggle-born but she was a really strong witch anyway. She . . ."

Neville waited long moments before he decided his mum wasn't going to finish her sentence. She had been staring blankly at the wall, her mouth moving slightly but no sound coming out. Now she started to shake noticeably, and tears came to her eyes. She buried her fingers in the kitten's fur and whispered, "Make the dark go away."

Neville jumped from his chair and leaned on the bed, depositing the second kitten on his mum's lap and taking her hand. "It's okay," he said softly. "It's not dark. It's fine. There's no darkness, and your kittens are here, and I'm right here, and it's not dark. I promise." He patted her hand, trying to think of what could have made her so upset. She was talking about Lily . . . Lily. Yes, he thought, thinking of Lily Potter might be enough to bring the darkness back.

He tried to find Hermione when he got back to school. Unfortunately, his attempt to find her involved checking the common room, checking the library, checking the common room again, deciding to knock on the door of the sixth-year girls' dormitory, and then yelling in surprise as he rolled backward down the smooth ramp that had appeared when the stairs suddenly melted away.

Naturally, Hermione came through the portrait hole just in time to see him getting up and rubbing various bruised portions of his anatomy. "Oh," she said, seeing the slide that had replaced the stairs. "Harry and Ron didn't tell the rest of you about what happened to them last year?"

"No," Neville groaned. "Probably wanted to see Seamus try to visit Lavender or something." He looked at Hermione, who was carrying only one book. "Where were you?" Then he caught himself and stammered, "Not that you don't have the right to be there - wherever."

Hermione sat down on the nearest armchair. "I was talking with Professor McGonagall," she said. "How was your visit?"

"Weird," Neville said, sitting down beside her. "She remembered things she shouldn't have - like being at school with Snape, and knowing Harry's mum, only she called her Lily. But she just got confused and said someone else must have told her about all that, or something."

"At least you know those later memories aren't gone," Hermione said brightly.

"She got really scared when she started thinking about Lily," Neville said.

"She remembered something about what happened to Lily later."

"That's what I think," he said, nodding.

"Well." Hermione was quiet for a while, and then she added, "You must have said the right thing."

"It scared her."

"But she remembered." She reached out - for a second he thought she was going to take his hand, but she laid her fingers on the sleeve of his jumper instead. "Everyone gets scared. Healthy people deal with being scared without shutting down, but your mum's not healthy yet. She needs to remember, but she also needs to remember how to stay in control of her fear."

"Will you come with me next time?" he said impulsively. "My Gran could ask Dumbledore . . ."

Hermione looked surprised, and he winced internally waiting for her to ask what he could possibly be thinking. "Are you sure you would want me to?" she asked.

"You know what to do," he said a bit desperately.

"You're doing great," she said, fingers still on his sleeve. "But . . . if you want me to come, I will."

"Really?"

"Sure. I'd like to talk to her." She paused. "I'll tell Harry and Ron I'm researching for Muggle Studies - a comparison between Muggle and magical healing."

"They'll believe that?"

She rolled her eyes. "They have Quidditch practice on Saturdays. They'll be distracted enough to believe anything - that's if they notice I'm gone at all."