AU story set during Deathly Hallows, revised from the Feb '09 posting.

Neville Longbottom has left school and has joined the Order of the Phoenix. Harry Potter is still regarded as Undesirable Number One by the Ministry of Magic, with a price on his head.

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A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

The sitting room of the Longbottom home was not very big, and it appeared to be even smaller than it was due to the collections of things cluttered upon every available flat surface. Harry Potter sat on the floor beside Ginny Weasley before the fire in the hearth to warm themselves after having flown to the house on Buckbeak the hippogriff. Neville had not wanted to be alone in the house after his grandmother had died last night and had asked his friends to visit.

A stack of back issues of the Daily Prophet stood precariously on a curio shelf beside the hearth, a battered old brass jardinière next to them. Harry was concerned that a good bump or gust of wind could topple the newspapers into the fire. He shifted the pile more toward the jardinière.

Neville entered with hot tea and slices of gingerbread and set down the tray after Ginny made room for it among the clutter on a low table. She and Harry now sat themselves on chairs to take the refreshments. Sitting in the chair which had always been his grandmother’s, Neville told them about his new job.

“Do you remember Mr. Hepplewhite from the Order? He is Deputy Head of Magical Maintenance at the Ministry. He got me a job as a janitor. I work the night shift. It’s not glamorous but I,” he paused, “I am able to do things for the Order. It’s a far cry from being an Auror, I know, but if I accomplish my assignments successfully, there is honor in it. Even Gran conceded that.”

Harry had felt too awkward to speak of Mrs. Longbottom before Neville did.

“Is she upstairs?” Harry asked delicately. “We should like to pay our respects.”

Neville shook his head. “Great-Uncle Algie and Great-Auntie Enid were here this morning. They thought it would be better if she lay in repose at their house. It’s bigger. Cleaner, too, I guess from Auntie Enid’s reaction. I know the house is cluttered, but I don’t see why that matters.” Neville sighed piteously. “It’s too quiet here. I really appreciate your coming here.”

“Of course we’d come,” said Ginny.

The three friends sipped the tea, none of them really knowing what if anything ought to be said next. A movement across the floor startled Harry but he kept his teacup steady. It was a toad. Its croak alerted Neville and Ginny to its presence. Neville scooped up his pet and set it on the arm of his chair.

“Trevor’s still going strong,” remarked Ginny in a light and friendly way.

Neville was looking at the toad and gave no indication he had heard her.

“Want to hear something weird?” he said in the oddest voice.

Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance but encouraged Neville to say whatever he felt he needed to share.

“Gran’s last words were ‘Trevor’s heart is yours.’ Isn’t that odd?”

“Yeah,” was all Harry could think to say.

“She probably meant that you still had someone, something, in the house to love, that you weren’t entirely alone.”

Ginny’s explanation sounded a bit lame to Harry, though he could offer no better one and was not sure Neville had been listening anyway. Neville was holding the toad. Were his encircling fingers feeling the animal’s heartbeat?

“What’s left of the family is gathering tomorrow at Great-Uncle Algie’s house,” Neville said absently. “The funeral will be the day after that.”

Trevor wriggled until he broke out of Neville’s grasp, then hopped away, crawling under the shelf of curios.

“I’ve been remembering things all morning,” Neville announced unexpectedly. “It’s almost been like dreaming, though I know I wasn’t asleep. Things from when I was little...things I haven’t thought of in years, it was all suddenly running through my head. Like, when I was really little I used to pretend Gran’s toad was my imaginary friend. You don’t think that was silly of me?” he asked, suddenly embarrassed to have shared this secret. His friends shook their heads in loyal support. “I was remembering the day I was playing in here and almost broke it. Gran got all upset and Great-Uncle Algie had to calm her down, and I was crying, mostly because I didn’t know what I had done to upset everyone. Funny, I had forgotten all about that day. Just thought of it this morning.”

Harry wondered if Gran’s passing had jolted these memories in Neville in a way similar to how an emotional upheaval could cause someone’s Patronus to change.

The look in Ginny’s eyes was calculating. “When you say you almost broke her toad, what does that mean?”

“I was playing with a broomstick, pretending to fly, and nearly knocked the ceramic toad, that one,” he pointed, “off the shelf with the tail of the broom.”

Harry blinked. So did Ginny. On the curio shelf a ceramic toad about eighteen inches high stood between the newspapers and the jardinière.

“That wasn’t there a moment ago!” Harry blurted.

“What do you mean?” asked Neville.

“Just what I said. Am I right?”

Ginny nodded her agreement with Harry.

“All the while Ginny and I were sitting here, the only things on that shelf were the Prophets and that brass bucket.”

“But it’s been there since this morning,” Neville insisted. “I know it was, because I was thinking this morning how strange it was to see it again, how I hadn’t thought about it in years, that Great-Uncle Algie must have brought it with him—”

“Maybe he did, but I still say I didn’t see it until now—”

“Harry’s right,” Ginny stated categorically. “It was not there earlier. I mean, unless it was but we couldn’t see it until—”

“—until you just spoke of it!” Harry said, understanding dawning on him. “Neville, you’re a Secret-Keeper.” This statement surprised Ginny as much as it dumfounded Neville. “We can see it now because you just told us about it. Someone put a charm on it, like a Fidelius Charm. When Ginny and I came over, we didn’t see it. I tell you, we would have left here never having seen it if you hadn’t pointed it out to us.”

“Your uncle didn’t bring it over this morning: It’s been there all along, Neville,” Ginny agreed. “Something happened for you now to be able to see it. Did he point it out to you?”

“No, nothing was said about toads. He didn’t even ask about Trevor. I don’t think he was in this room more than ten seconds.”

“See, your uncle couldn’t have brought it! You said your grandmother was upset when you nearly broke it?” Ginny pressed. Neville nodded. “And that’s the last time you remember seeing it?” Neville nodded again. “She was the Secret-Keeper, Neville.”

“Or,” considered Harry, “you were the one all along, but she put a Memory Charm on you so you would not remember. Either she lifted it, or it broke with her passing.”

“What do you mean?” asked Neville, trying to keep up with the rapid explosions of these astonishing possibilities.

“Don’t you think it sort of looks like Trevor?” Harry asked Ginny, nodding toward the ceramic toad.

“I think it does,” agreed Ginny.

“Her last words, Neville, what were they?”

“ ‘Trevor’s heart is yours.’ ”

“Could that be ‘Trevor’s heart’?” Harry asked him.

“No,” stated Ginny. “ ‘Trevor’s heart’ is whatever’s inside it. That’s what’s yours. That’s what she wanted you to know.”

Neville did not move. Harry and Ginny did not move. They watched Neville who was pondering all the events he had experienced since last night. He looked at his friends, then stood up.

He lifted the ceramic toad, returned to the chair, and set it on his lap. The toad’s head lifted easily, like the lid of a whimsical cookie jar. He reached a hand inside the hollow space.

“There’re things in there!” he cried.

To his own amazement he withdrew a glass vial whose stopper sealed within it a silvery substance that swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas.

“What is this?”

Ginny was not sure.

“It’s memory,” Harry stated. “Neville, Gran left a memory for you—”

“But how do you—?” He began to bring it to his eye for closer examination.

“Leave the stopper in,” Harry advised. “You’ll need a Pensieve to view it.”

“Where would I get one?”

“There’s one in Dumbledore’s office.”

“That’s Snape’s office,” Ginny reminded them in a very Hermione-like way. “You boys aren’t planning to break in there, are you?”

“If that’s the only one there is, I don’t see that Neville has much choice. We can sneak him up there at night.”

Ginny asked, “You said there were ‘things’ in there. What else is in there?”

He lifted out two wands and a small wooden toy train engine and let Ginny examine them, but his attention was still on the vial.

“I’ve never seen a Pensieve,” he said to Harry. “But you know about them, how they work?”

“A little,” said Harry.

“I really would like to know what this is. It must have been very important to her.” His eyes suddenly glimmered. “Harry, I have access to a Pensieve! There’s one at the Ministry! I just remembered: when Mr. Hepplewhite was taking me through orientation, Mr. Clifford came by to say hello...he’s an Unspeakable, and I made a joke about having bad memories of the Department of Mysteries, and he made a joke about the room where memories are studied. He made reference to a Pensieve but I didn’t get the joke until now.”

“Well then, there you go!” Harry declared, problem solved.

“Would you mind coming with me, to show me?” Neville asked him.

“You want Undesirable Number One to go with you to the Ministry of Magic?”

When Neville nodded solemnly, Harry smiled at Ginny, so glad she was not Hermione.

“We’ll sneak in first night after the funeral,” Harry proposed.

Neville nodded, his gaze still transfixed by the swirling silvery substance.

* * *

When the golden grilles slid open at Level Nine, two teenage boys, one in official navy maintenance robes and the other in jeans and a sweatshirt, stepped out into a corridor flickering with torchlight. Harry led the way toward the ominous plain black door they both knew only too well. As before, it swung open; they marched over its threshold. This time they did not close it behind them.

Harry and Neville approached it. A serpent, coiled around a fluted column, head down and tail up, supported the corner of the baldachin to their right; a lion-bodied, human-headed sphinx formed the column to their left. Between them, upon the lower frieze of the baldachin, was cut the word REGNABO.

Harry and Neville circled clockwise, the same direction as the revolving wheel. The left-side statue was that of a man with the head of a black dog. Here the frieze read REGNO. The fourth statue was carved as a slender, beautiful woman, robed as from antiquity, though blindfolded; her robe and cloak were painted in garish hues of red and blue. REGNAVI was inscribed on the frieze here. The frieze set between the woman and the serpent read SVM SINE REGNO.

Having come full circle, Harry’s gaze swept the room again.

“Which door do we take?” he asked, regarding the other three.

“The sword,” replied Neville, recalling the directions he had received from Mr. Clifford.

The two Gryffindors proceeded toward it.

The room they entered was long, like a tunnel, torridly grim, lit by amber torches set in massive, nine-tiered, iron chandeliers which cast writhing shadows over the stone walls; the walls fore and aft were cluttered with chains, iron cuffs, impaling poles, maces and battleaxes, swords and Catherine wheels, thumb screws, and an assortment of vicious whips. A heavy door was set into each of the long lateral walls. The wall to the right contained shelves, row upon row, floor to ceiling, of glass jars; preserved in them were specimens of hideous injuries and deformities of flesh and diseased organs. The left-side wall was covered with countless picture frames (though all of the canvases were too dark to take in their images at a glance), and Harry had no inclination to study them. In a niche of this wall was the bust of a woman with seven daggers thrust into her chest; actual wet tears were dripping from the statue’s eyes. The larger mechanisms of torture positioned about the room also sent chills through both Harry and Neville, and they did not linger in this chamber but swiftly made their way through it and out the door at its far end.

This door connected to the room they sought, a door Harry made sure was shut behind them. He and Neville now stood in a small chamber, round like a turret, crafted of smooth stonework and a floor of blue tiles; shelf after shelf had crammed upon it small glass flasks and bottles, each containing a swirling silvery substance, neither liquid nor gas. Another door at the opposite wall interrupted the encircling shelves. At the room’s center a rune-marked stone basin stood poised on its low pedestal. The room was lit only by a silvery sheen dancing on the ceiling and the bottles, emitted from the Pensieve. Harry led his friend to the shimmering basin. Neville stared at it, apprehensive.

“You pour it in,” Harry instructed when he observed Neville’s continued inaction.

Swallowing fearfully, Neville took the stopper out of the small glass phial and tipped in the silver-white contents. His apprehension did not diminish as he watched the substance ebb and swirl in the basin, sending out shivering lights. Harry stood beside him, also gazing into its depths.

“Now give it a prod,” said Harry. “Then you go in.”

“Harry...” Neville whispered, immobile, failing to hide the fright in his voice “...I’m...it’s...I...Would you come with me?”

Plainly Neville was as afraid of what he would encounter in there as he was of the unknowns of the process, not least because it had to do with his grandmother. Harry had not wanted to intrude, memory being a personal thing, but he felt for Neville’s anxiety.

“Sure. Remember: It’s only a memory. There’s nothing in there that can hurt you. And you can leave it whenever you want to just by willing yourself out.”

Neville nodded bravely. At first his hand trembled when he prodded the contents with his wand-tip, but as he gained comfort in knowing that he would not have to proceed alone, that Harry had already experienced this sort of thing, his grip became more steady.

“Like this,” said Harry and demonstrated by bending forward, taking a deep breath and plunging his face into the broad rune-marked basin. He felt his feet leave the tile floor; he was falling, falling through whirling darkness and then, quite suddenly, he was standing along a village lane after dark, Neville now beside him. The cement beneath their feet was damp; there were puddles. They looked quizzically at each other. Then Harry’s eyes widened, his face suddenly pale: He had been here before.

“This is Godric’s Hollow,” he said almost without speaking.

Except for a few straggling trick-or-treaters in a spectrum of costumes passing by with their sacks laden with treats, and a man and woman standing at the corner of a white picket fence dividing a Muggle house from the woodland at its left, the lane was deserted.

Neville then gripped Harry’s upper arm in a grasp unintentionally painful but deftly communicating his astonishment: The man and woman were Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Neville’s face was aglow as he approached his parents: Frank, alert and unafraid; and Alice, brown-haired, the brow of her plump, round face furrowed with distress.

“We’re too late,” she murmured. “He’s already in there.” She was staring at the infinitesimal space between the fence and the trees where stood the Unplottable house which no one but a Secret-Keeper could see. “There’s no stopping him now.”

Frank was staring as grimly, his face suddenly illuminated by a flash of sickening green light.

Between the picket fence and the woodland there stood a cottage that wasn’t there a moment ago, bordered by hedges and a gate of its own, with friendly light spilling out from the picture window of its sitting room.

“Mum,” Harry breathed, looking anguished.

The Longbottoms charged up the walkway and through the open front door. Neville and Harry followed. Frank skidded to a horrified halt: On the carpet of the narrow hallway lay the crumpled body of James Potter. Alice’s face snapped toward the stairs, down which she could hear the crying of a baby—Harry was still alive! Alice now took the lead, dashing up to the second floor nursery, wand ready for battle.

Just as she reached the top of the stairs, she glimpsed the back of the black-cloaked figure through the nursery’s open doorway and heard the room resound with the cry:

“Avada Kedavra!”

The room exploded with blinding green light. The impact sent Alice toppling back into Frank.

Dust from the crashing debris billowed as a cloud along the little hallway and down the stairs as it settled. Alice was already on her feet, scrambling forward, Frank right behind her.

Baby Harry had fallen back in his crib, bloodied, and wailing in pain.

But before the Longbottoms could get to him, from the rubble on the floor, where Voldemort’s body lay, something stirred. Up from the black-cloaked body, as if made of the dust itself, rose a billowing essence, not man, not ghost, not even a spirit, but a substance that shifted black or scarlet or grey, without form, ascending through the broken ceiling beams. Frank cast a spell into the depths of the undulating opaque mass but, with a scream, he fell back as if electrocuted. The essence wove itself into the fabric of the night and as it did so a sucking wind howled through the nursery until all trace of the vapory essence had vanished. This was Dark Magic, such as Alice had never witnessed before, had never even heard of, and it frightened her to her core.

She crawled through the debris coated with plaster dust to her husband. He was unconscious but alive. She moved on: The baby was her chief concern.

Baby Harry continued to wail, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. There was blood on his blanket and on his blue pajamas: A bleeding gash had cut his forehead. Scooping him up, she hurried him to the bathroom where she could clean and dress the wound.

Neville followed his mother down the hall while Harry knelt beside the body of his.

This was only a memory, and he its visitor: He could not actually touch her long, dark red hair though his hand stroked the ruffled tresses disarrayed on the blue carpet. Not thinking, he tried to brush away the particles of debris that had fallen on her face but he did not have that power. His eyes were becoming moist and deep in the most private chamber of his heart he spoke words he could not adequately form aloud. He placed his hand where her open palm lay, and bending close, he kissed his mother’s cheek.

Nearby, Frank was rousing, coughing. As his senses came back to him, he sat up. He looked around. When more sense returned to him, he launched himself up and bounded down the stairs. Harry turned to the shattered front of the house and could see Mr. Longbottom outside casting spells on the cottage to prevent it from attracting the attention of Muggles. Then he sent a Patronus streaking into the night. He hurried back inside. He delayed a bit downstairs before racing up to the nursery. There he Transfigured Voldemort’s body, where it lay near the overturned toy chest, into what looked like a child’s small wooden train engine.

“Frank!” Alice called him to the bathroom.

“Harry!” Neville called to his friend.

Both men strode to the bathroom. Alice was cuddling the baby screaming for Mama! She had mended the cut. Frank looked at it closely: It resembled a little bolt of lightning.

“I’ve tried everything I know but I can’t fade the scar—”

But that was not the point of her urgency...

“—Frank, he’s blind!” cried Mrs. Longbottom. “The curse—it burned his eyes. Oh Frank—sweet little Harry—he’s blind...”

Harry and Neville exchanged a look of astonishment. Harry could feel his glasses perched on his nose, hooked at his ears; his vision had always been less than perfect but he was not blind.

Frank stooped over the thrashing child to make his own examination. His woeful expression confirmed her diagnosis. He glanced back toward the nursery, a thought working through him, then dashed to where Lily’s body lay. He was examining her eyes too.

“Bring the baby!” he called. “Bring Harry here.”

Harry stepped out of the way as Alice hastened back, and he and Neville trailed her. She knelt with the baby beside Frank, who still knelt beside Lily.

“You can do it, Love. It’s complicated, I know, but you’ve been well trained.” He added as an afterthought, “I alerted Dumbledore.”

Harry and Neville both stepped to the wall so as not to witness the operation in detail as Alice had conjured an array of specialized instruments and had begun to prepare the baby to receive eyes donated by his mother. Neville looked to the teenage Harry. Behind his glasses, his eyelids were shut tight over the bright green eyes, and he swayed as if close to fainting; his friend steadied him.

When it was done, Frank covered Lily with a sheet taken from the crib. Alice remained sitting where she was on the floor with the little child in her arms, rocking him and singing to him a lulling song, as close to phoenix song as a woman’s voice could be.

Neville and Harry both backed out of the room; this lullaby was too much for either of them to bear.

The two observers descended the stairs down to the hallway. Another Patronus streaked past them. Neville nodded over toward the sitting room and he strolled there, to the picture window whose open curtains had displayed the vulnerable family, and he stared contemplatively into the night, giving Harry some private time with his father.

Too benumbed even to kneel, Harry stood and looked down at James Potter.

In death, his father’s face retained lines of the courage he had foisted at his attacker. Though wandless, he had fought with his fortitude. This was a Gryffindor. Had Harry the power, he would have raised this man to lie upon a pall of gold and scarlet for all to see and honor. Mr. Longbottom had made a hasty but respectful effort to straighten the body, yet James’s glasses lay slightly askew; a knot of pain clenched Harry’s gut: He could not offer his father the service of straightening them. He was in truth only a baby whimpering in the arms of a caring friend in a shattered nursery, unable to comprehend what his parents had done for him, unable to thank them.

“I love you,” Harry whispered now, knowing that for love no time was ever too late.

He turned to look over his right shoulder at the sound of footsteps down the stairs.

Unable to assist, Harry watched as Mr. Longbottom carried Lily to the sitting room and with reverence and dignity laid her body upon the low coffee table. After drawing the curtains shut, he then brought in three chairs from the dining room, spaced them facing the coffee table, and lifted James’s body upon them, arranging it with due respect. Next, Frank took the andirons from the fireplace, Transfigured them into tall stately candlesticks, and set them at the heads of James and Lily. Candles from the mantelpiece were placed on these raised candlesticks as vigil lights. Harry had never been to a wake before and approved of the solemn arrangements Mr. Longbottom had troubled to accord his friends. Harry and Neville stood beside Mr. Longbottom for a minute or two as Frank gave himself this time of reflection.

When he returned upstairs, the boys followed.

Neville stepped alongside his dad when Frank walked down the small hallway to Lily and James’s bedroom. Softly Frank opened the door and entered silently.

Alice looked up; by her expression she entreated him to be very quiet. Frank sat beside her on the edge of the double bed. Neville sat at her other side.

“You know how I am philosophically against using Sleeping Charms on babies,” she whispered, “but this time—this once—I thought Harry needs to sleep, to forget and be innocent and heal.”

Frank glanced over to the part of the bed where his son was sitting; startled, it took Neville a moment to realize that his father was not looking at him but at a wand lying on the bed beside where Alice was sitting; it was a wand he did not recognize.

“Lily’s wand,” Alice explained, “She had left it in here—over there on the dressing table.”

She handed it to Frank who pocketed it.

A silvery vulture swooped into the room, and Gran’s voice said that all was quiet and secure at their home, and she would watch over Neville until their return. Alice looked down at the baby boy asleep in her arms, her round face displaying both relief and worry.

“How long do you think it’s going to take before his followers discover what happened? We’re going to have Death Eaters here, Frank, looking for Lord Voldemort. Looking for answers. When they learn he’s gone because the curse rebounded, that Harry survived, Harry won’t be safe. Dumbledore must know that.”

After composing his thoughts for a silent moment or two, Frank sent a third Patronus into the night.

Harry shifted uneasily on his feet. There was so much death and sorrow here and nothing to do but stand among it. He wanted to leave this memory. Neville, however, was too rapt in the simple joy of being with his parents as he never knew them, when they were in the prime of their vitality. Not being able to talk to them did not matter: merely to gaze at them was enough. Harry knew how he felt. He himself had sat before the Mirror of Erised for uncounted hours just taking in the loving images of the parents he had barely known. Harry could not find it in his heart to deprive Neville of whatever time here was available to him. Having it alone was also important. Harry wandered out.

He could not go downstairs. That was too unbearable. He strolled to the demolished nursery, where Lily had cast down her life, where Voldemort had met a critical defeat, and where years later she had led her grown son to the sword that could destroy the Dark wizard for good. The sword they didn’t have anymore...Harry did not want to dwell on that.

He looked down again on the spot where Alice had sat and held him after performing intricate surgery, and his stomach lurched and his eyes stung. Through these eyes Lily Potter loved a husband and nurtured a son. She saw life and love, disappointment and distress, and at too soon an end she looked upon the face of Death. With these same eyes. Harry pushed up his glasses and pressed his hands to cover them. In sixteen years what had he been seeing through them? Why was he not seeing as she did?

The cold whisper of the night wind now prowled through this previously enclosed space, and it swirled dust and flecks of debris through Harry who could not feel it. This house, the silence, were too much. Again he was tempted to exit this memory. Neville could manage it alone now—

Then something rushed past him—

It was a rat—Scabbers—with the yew wand in its teeth, running toward a gap in the broken front wall of the nursery.

Instinctively Harry dove at the creature to stop it, but his hands went through it. Getting up, realizing he also did not need to dust himself off, he turned toward the front yard below when he heard a bang and the calling of his name.

“HARRY! HARRY!” a giant roar filled the open front doorway. A howl of horror came next as Hagrid caught sight of the bodies laid out in the sitting room.

“HARRY!”

Harry was at the top of the stairs before Frank. There in the hallway below, Hagrid, his face flushed, his black eyes frantic with alarm, was making his way to the stairs. The Auror had his wand calmly pointed at the intruder.

“Prove your identity. And do it quietly.”

“Blimey, Frank!” Hagrid growled when halted. “I’m me!”

Behind Hagrid a silver phoenix swooped in, and Dumbledore’s voice spoke that he had instructed Hagrid to take the baby to safety. Frank stowed his wand and motioned him up. Hagrid’s heavy footfalls creaked the stairs as he pounded up to the second floor.

“Where’s Harry?” Hagrid questioned.

“Alice has him. In the bedroom. She got him to sleep, so go quietly,” said Frank, steering Hagrid toward the bedroom, keeping his back to the wreck of the nursery.

Alice was sitting on the bed, the baby asleep on her lap. Hagrid could not refrain from asking questions and was told to hush lest he wake Harry. Hagrid bowed to get a look at the baby. Harry lived! But there was a great slash on his forehead! Anger began to thunder in the man, rage that Lord Voldemort had hurt a baby and killed his parents. Alice looked imploringly at her husband. Frank suggested that they leave Harry here to sleep a little longer, and that it would be good for Hagrid to go downstairs and pay his respects to the parents.

Leaving Neville sitting blissfully beside his mother, their round faces so alike, Harry followed the others downstairs, though did not enter the sitting room with them. Instead, he leaned against the wall of the hallway, looking from the open front door, down to the kitchen, remembering the second Halloween Voldemort had entered this house, and how Hermione had gotten Harry safely away.

The sound of sobbing brought him back from his reverie.

Harry glanced into the sitting room. Frank was seated beside Hagrid on the plaid sofa, offering what comfort he could to the man weeping into a large spotted handkerchief. In time, Hagrid was pulling himself together, urged by Frank to be up to his immensely important task: Little Harry Potter’s life would be in his hands, literally. When Hagrid felt ready, Frank gave him escort back upstairs. Harry followed.

Sniffling, wiping his eyes, Hagrid stumbled into the darkened bedroom. Alice let him hold the baby while she stripped the bedspread from the bed and pulled off the blanket neatly tucked atop the white sheets. She then made a bunting for the child to keep him warm and carefully wrapped him up. Cradling Baby Harry again in her arms, she was wary of handing him over just yet.

“He’ll need food, Hagrid. Baby food, you understand? And clean nappies. Do you have the slightest idea how to care for a baby? Where are you taking him?”

“Where he’s going is between Professor Dumbledore an’ meself.”

“Are you taking him to Hogwarts?” questioned Frank shrewdly.

“Don’t yeh worry none, folks. Professor Dumbledore’ll be sendin’ me a Patronus soon as I get ter—the safe place. He’s makin’ all the arrangements, Dumbledore is.”

Neville’s mother did not look persuaded.

“No one’s goin’ ter neglect Harry, don’ yeh worry, Alice. Jus’ send a Patronus ter Dumbledore lettin’ him know I’ve left the house with Harry safe an’ alive.”

Her misgivings were not so easily allayed. Though Alice placed the baby in Hagrid’s arms, she immediately led him into the nursery. The changing table had been knocked over in the force of the explosion. Alice set it back on its feet and rummaged through it.

“Here are four nappies and two more blankets and a bottle.” She passed these items to Hagrid who pocketed them in his great coat. “Send me an owl at once if you need anything: help, advice, anything! Promise me.”

Extracting the promise, satisfied she had done all she could, wiping a tear or two from her sweet round face, she led the way downstairs, with her teenage son following, who also, his friend noticed, was discreetly wiping away a tear or two.

Words of good-bye and God’s speed and Good Luck were exchanged. At last Hagrid headed outside.

Harry followed, his attention suddenly elevated. He had remembered something he had overheard years ago—remembered it should be happening right about now...

The roar of an engine thundered through the quiet lane, and a motorcycle skidded to a halt at the gate. The driver gaped at a house he should not be able to see, but could. His grey eyes did not move as the horror of why he should be able to see the house struck him full force. When sensation returned to him enough to move his eyes, they traveled to the upper story, where the right side of the house, where the nursery would be, had been blasted apart, and the color drained from his face. The movement of Hagrid in the front yard drew his attention and, tall and lithe, he leapt from the motorbike and bounded through the gate and up the walk.

“HOW? WHEN?” the handsome, dark-haired man called. He reached Hagrid and now saw what the huge man was holding. “HARRY!” he cried and repeated his truncated interrogation of, “How? When?”

“Hagrid, have you verified who he is?” said a voice behind them.

Teenage Harry turned to see Mr. Longbottom standing in the doorway with Neville beside him. Frank had his wand held ready to confront trouble.

“’Course I know who he is: This here’s Sirius Black.”

“So he appears, but he could be an imposter. Death Eaters know lots of tricks. Step away from him and don’t say another word until he’s proven his identity.”

Annoyance was clearly visible on Sirius’s face; he pointed his wand at the Auror. A large, silvery dog sprang out of its tip and bounded over to Frank; it sniffed his crotch then lifted its hind leg and aimed at Frank’s ankles—but the swish of Frank’s wand across it made it vanish. The look on Frank’s face was clearly not amused. For Neville’s sake Harry only just managed to hold back both laughter and smirk. He felt so much better now that Sirius was here.

“I don’t think we should be lingering outside. Hagrid, go now.”

“Go? With Harry? Where’re you going? No.” Sirius’s face had blanched paler and he had both stepped to block Hagrid’s progress and held out his arms to receive the bundle.

“I got ter go, Sirius. It’s how Professor Dumbledore wants it.”

“No!” Sirius repeated. His gaze searched beyond Hagrid, to the open doorway and into the house, where he could see Alice standing in the hallway, and he comprehended that Harry’s parents were indeed dead. The outstretched arms still demanding to receive the baby began to tremble with a surfeit of emotion. “Give Harry to me, Hagrid. I’m his godfather. I’ll look after him. He’s not your responsibility.”

Hagrid held firm to the precious bundle he carried. “I got me orders...”

“Sirius, come inside. Hagrid, you too.” Frank motioned everyone inside and shut the door.

“I’m his appointed guardian,” Sirius again asserted his primacy.

Alice answered him, “And as such, you of everyone should be willing to bow to what’s best for him.”

“I’m not pushing my own will, Alice. It’s how James wanted it. You don’t think he knew what was best for his son, is that it?”

Harry felt a surge of pride at his godfather’s loyal obstinacy.

Sirius’s eyes darted about the hallway, as if searching for something.

“Professor Dumbledore himself—” insisted Hagrid.

Sirius cut across him, “To hell with Dumbledore—we’re talking about Harry and his welfare. What’s the old man going to do with him? Raise him at Hogwarts? I can give him a home, a substitute father’s love. Harry will be living with me.” The finality in his tone conveyed that all discussion of the matter had ended.

When Hagrid protested, the two men began to argue.

“Quiet, both of you,” Frank intervened. “Hagrid is under Dumbledore’s expressed instructions, and in a time of war, which this is, such considerations must trump even a parent’s wishes.”

Neville watched with admiration the way his father went toe to toe with Sirius Black.

Harry watched Sirius relent, though his show of scowling renitence warmed Harry with deepest affection for his godfather. How different would his life have been if at this moment Sirius had carried him out of the house, if it had been Sirius, not Hagrid, flying off with him on the motorcycle? But for how long? How long until the child would be in the hands of the Death Eaters, with Sirius perhaps falling as another casualty in his defense?

“At least let me hold him.”

Hagrid pressed the bundle closer to his own massive chest.

“I said, let me hold him.”

Alice eyed the young man shrewdly. “Show us you can control yourself.”

Sirius met her gaze and understood he was outnumbered three against one. He arranged himself to stand meekly. Gently Alice took the bundle from Hagrid and laid James’s orphaned son in his best friend’s arms.

Sirius’s whole demeanor changed. Teenage Harry could only believe that it was this cheerful face that had come to the house and visited the family, this playful heart that had bought his godson a toy broomstick. Harry smiled.

“Oi, kiddo, you’re getting big,” Sirius praised Baby Harry as he began to gently rock him. Suddenly he stopped, his face again alarmed. There was a slash across the baby’s forehead.

“What happened to him!”

“Shhh! Don’t wake him!” Alice scolded in a whisper. She reached for the child.

Sirius swung away from her; his grip on Harry had become protective. “Answer me,” he demanded. “How did this happen? Was it Voldemort?”

Alice guided Sirius to the door of the sitting room. At the sight, Sirius stood as if he had just become a corpse himself. Alice lifted the sleeping baby out of his arms.

Intellectually, he had known they were dead the moment he realized he could see the house. Seeing the bodies forced the reality into every fiber of him. Hagrid reached out a hand the size of a dustbin lid to comfort the white-faced man with a pat on the shoulder. The force of it went through Sirius like a slap, rousing him from his benumbed state. Alice led him forward into the room (Harry followed) and shut the door. Neville chose to wait in the hallway with his dad.

Mrs. Longbottom sat on the sofa, the sleeping child on her lap, and relayed the full story of everything that had happened this night and did not impede the Potters’ dearest friend from his privilege to sit or stand or pace as his emotions dictated.

A heartbreaking smile pulled at Harry’s lips as his dad’s best friend set James’s glasses on straight. Sirius then dropped down on the sofa, bent forward as if all the sorrow of the world were crushing his shoulders, his face in his hands. Harry sat beside him, now at last allowing himself, with his godfather, to feel his grief, as much for Sirius’s as for his own.

Alice had risen and opened the door. She bade the others to enter.

Harry looked toward the doorway when they entered. He stood up as Sirius did, and made himself look presentable as Sirius did, despite being visible only to Neville whose look of understanding fostered no embarrassment. They nodded to each other: both taking courage from the other to continue on to the end.

Everyone stood gazing at the reposing forms for a minute or two of respectful silence.

Sirius strode forward. When his eyes scanned the bundle of blankets, yet in Alice’s care, there was a wild light glowing in them now which Frank found disturbing.

“Let me hold him...one last time...please...”

Frank exchanged a concerned glance with his wife.

“There’s no need to be so dramatic, Sirius,” Alice spoke out with reassuring calm and caressed the back of the small child sleeping at her shoulder. “Harry has survived the worst already, he is going live a long and happy life.”

She placed the heavy bundle in Sirius’s hungering arms. Harry’s godfather held him lovingly, gazing with a softness that would stretch a moment into a lifetime, and whispered a promise to James’s son. He gave Baby Harry a kiss on the forehead, on the side without the scar, a tear dropping into the baby’s black hair, then he offered him to Hagrid to receive.

Teenage Harry unconsciously touched his hair as if the tear yet glistened there.

Sirius then visibly pulled himself together and cleared his throat.

“You can have my motorcycle, Hagrid. It’ll speed Harry to safety. I’ll feel better knowing that.”

When Hagrid objected that the offer was too generous, Sirius waved a hand of finality.

“Take it. I won’t need it anymore.”

Alice looked to Frank, alarmed by how ominous this sounded.

“Wait, take this too.” Sirius pulled a fine chain from beneath the neck of his shirt; a small golden key dangled from the chain. “It’s to the Potter vault. I was holding it for James while he was in hiding in case the family needed emergency funds. It belongs to Harry now.”

Harry’s eyes followed that key into Hagrid’s pocket; in ten year’s time not-so-baby Harry would see it removed again.

It was time to go. Teenage Harry followed Hagrid outside to the front gate. A chill wind rustled through Hagrid’s wild black hair and beard. It went past and through Harry who could not feel it. Hagrid cast furtive glances all around as if expecting either fanfare or ambush.

“The Muggles oughtta be comin’ abou’ here anytime ter stick their noses in. Curious lot, Muggles,” said Hagrid.

At first Harry took for granted Hagrid was talking to him, as he stood in the man’s sight line, but he couldn’t be; then he realized Sirius had also come outside and was standing behind him.

“It wouldn’t be any trouble for me to watch him for a few days—until Dumbledore gets the permanent arrangements settled,” Sirius persisted.

“I told yeh, I got me orders.”

“I could go with you, take care of him at your hideout...”

This time Hagrid did not reply but tucked the baby into his great moleskin coat. Then the huge man straddled the large bike. Its engine roared into life. With a last look back at Sirius and the shattered cottage, Harry’s first friend drove off and away, carrying him into the uncertainty of the night.

Something else seemed to leave Sirius as he stood gazing past the streetlights along the lane, the autumn wind ruffling his short dark hair, then whipping around him to chill his limbs. Yet, as Harry watched him, he suspected his godfather did not feel the teeth of the night, was numb to a good many things now, except the singular emotion that had begun to heat his blood.

Something silver streaked past him: Frank had sent another Patronus. Alice had come outside to coax Sirius back into the cottage. He was not looking at her; Harry saw a ferocious gleam in Sirius’s eyes.

“Would you like me to make you a cup of tea, Sirius?” asked Alice.

Sirius did not hear her: He had been muttering to himself about the betrayer, his anger fuming to volcanic rage. He zipped up his leather jacket and turned to Alice. He looked almost deranged.

“I’M GOING TO KILL HIM!” he thundered with a look more savage than his words. And for a frightening instant his good looks melted away, and Harry saw fathomless grey eyes glaring maniacally from dark sockets set in the hollowed, waxy skull which Azkaban would soon wreck upon this youthful face.

Not looking back, Sirius Black stalked into the darkness of the night; a pop told them he had Disapparated.

Alice returned inside, Harry following. She rejoined Frank in the sitting room. She bent down and picked up James’s wand; it had rolled off the sofa where he’d left it after making colored smoke to entertain his son. She handed it to Frank. With the reverence accorded to a saint’s relic, Frank put it protectively into his pocket with the wand from the bedroom. Watching, Harry looked as if he had just taken a Stunning spell to the face; he turned toward Neville who was quickly at his side, again to steady him. Neville understood now too: these were the two wands preserved in the ceramic toad with the phial of memory.

Neville was the first to notice his parents were talking again. In hushed tones they agreed they would wait until they received Dumbledore’s next instructions before alerting officers of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who could assess if or when the Muggle authorities needed to be briefed. The greatest imperative now was to forestall the Death Eaters.

Another pop sounding from the front yard launched Frank to the picture window to investigate. He peeked through the curtains.

“They’re here.”

In the yard, halfway between the gate and the front door, three wizards and a witch halted when confronted by the swift presence of the Longbottoms emerging from the cottage and now blocking the path forward. Harry recognized them on sight: the thickset man, the thinner man, the tall woman with thick dark hair, and the teenage boy with straw-colored hair and freckled skin: the Lestranges and Crouch had come to call.

In an instant six wands were raised, as well as the two instinctively drawn by the two observing teenagers. Frank’s rock-steady voice warned that no Death Eater would enter the house; nothing was going to be disturbed, no bodies defiled.

“Where is the Dark Lord?” Bellatrix demanded.

Harry was surmising that a rendezvous had been missed.

“Obviously, the parents are dead,” stated Barty Jr., his eyes roving the cottage he could clearly see. “Did he kill the brat or not?”

The Longbottoms gave them nothing, no word, no ground, no quarter, though the exploded condition of the upper story told the Death Eaters something violent had transpired tonight; that two Aurors guarded the secret of the shattered room did not bode well.

“What happened in there?” Bellatrix took a step forward.

Rodolphus also raised his sword as threateningly as his wand.

When the Longbottoms remained determined not to co-operate, Bellatrix’s wand let out a bang, and a punching spell hurtled at them to knock them out of her way. Alice was quicker. The spell rebounded, and it was Bellatrix who staggered back. The surprise of it provided Frank with enough of a diversion to Stun Rodolphus and Rabastan in blinding succession. Screaming his curses, Barty Jr. buckled Frank’s knees. Neville’s scream added to the melee as he watched his father drop to the ground. He and Harry tried to join in but no magic came out of their wands. They could do no more than watch as Alice took on Bellatrix, and Frank, from the ground, made Barty Jr. dance under a rapid-fire of curses. Neville let out a whooping cheer as one of his mother’s curses set Bellatrix’s hair on fire as it streaked past her head, followed by a well-aimed Killing Curse that missed only because of Bellatrix’s sudden Disapparition. Barty Jr. followed her, taking his Stunned comrades with him, leaving behind a savage glower that told the Longbottoms this encounter would be repeated.

Alice was at her husband’s side and in moments had his knees healed. She and he then both struggled to gallantly assist the other to standing. Frank’s legs wobbled a little but the muscles regained their tone after a few steps. He dispatched another Patronus and then returned inside.

“Was that the famous sword?” Alice asked him, meaning the one Rodolphus had wielded.

“That’s the one. Whomever it touches, on the command of the wielder, not only will they believe whatever the wielder tells them, they’ll also be his ally in whatever his scheme is. Good thing for the goblins that it only works on wizards or there’d be no stopping a break-in on Gringotts.”

It wasn’t long before the Longbottoms had more visitors. Sent by Dumbledore, Gideon and Fabian Prewett had arrived to stand guard and hold vigil at the cottage, giving relief to Frank and Alice who had endured a long and strenuous night. Molly’s brothers were a jovial pair, not very tall, but self-assured with unmistakably crafty looks in their eyes. Harry was struck immediately by how much they reminded him of their twin nephews. From a pocket of his robes, Fabian drew out a gold watch and consulted the time.

“Dumbledore will be arriving here in a few hours. He wants you to go home and rest.”

“I think he’s planning a funeral for later today,” added Gideon, “though a really quiet one, and quick. Just whoever of the Order that can be spared.”

“What of Harry?” asked Alice.

“Don’t have any news, sorry,” answered Fabian, “except that Hagrid has him. Don’t worry: He’ll be all right. Dumbledore will see to that.”

“He’s going to be one famous kid,” said Gideon, “but I don’t envy him it.”

It was time to go: for Frank and Alice, and for Harry and Neville.

Harry put his hand under Neville’s elbow and they felt themselves both rising into the air as the front yard of the cottage dissolved around them. For a moment all was blackness, and then, as if doing a slow-motion somersault, they landed on their feet on the tile floor of the shimmering room; their knees, however, were too weak to permit them to remain standing, and both boys crumpled under the weight of their exhaustion.

Panting, Harry half-lay, half-sat on the tile floor: The power to think, to feel, to remember had left him. There was nothing in him or around him but benumbed existence. It was only when he turned his mother’s green eyes toward Neville that a sense of person and place returned to him.

Neville sat frightfully white, his staring eyes struggling to focus. Only when Harry said his name, as if from the mouth of a well a mile up, did his senses of hearing, sight and touch reconnect with his consciousness. His head turned toward Harry and his gaze searched the green eyes. He wanted to know how Harry had fared through the ordeal, was he coping? Harry nodded: He had been through many memories before, including those in Voldemort’s head...He had seen his parents through various means at various times, though seeing their dead bodies was disturbing...He was going to be all right. But was Neville? Frank’s son nodded. He and Harry both understood, both appreciated at this moment, the blessing they shared by having gone into this memory together: Neither could have endured it alone.

“I don’t ever want to do that again,” gasped Neville.

Yet, accompanying the angst of what he had witnessed, there also lingered a glow of pride to warm away the pallor of his face: Though their lives were shattered, Frank and Alice lived, and the thought of going to St. Mungo’s as soon as he possibly could to see them again made Neville’s heart pound.

With a nod to each other, he and Harry agreed it was time to go. They got to their feet. With his wand-tip, Harry prodded the swirling memory out of the Pensieve and back into the glass phial. Neville took it from Harry’s outstretched hand and tucked it protectively into a pocket of his robes. Together, the two friends walked out, aware that neither would speak aloud of this night to anyone.