Fic: The Dying of the Light (Neville, Augusta, PG-13)

[lyras]

Title: The Dying of the Light
Author: lyras
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4,800 words
Summary: Augusta and Neville adjust to life after the attack on Frank and Alice.
Warnings: While this isn't unrelentingly depressing, readers may find some of the issues (eg loss of memory) upsetting.
Notes: Thank you so much to kethlenda and pasi for beta-reading. This story is dedicated to my dad.


Augusta is tending the daffodils in her front garden when the message arrives. Afterwards, she will always remember the incongruous setting with guilt. "What are you talking about?" she demands of the nervous Auror they've sent. He's about the same age as Frank and Alice, and looks severely shaken.

"They - Mrs Longbottom, I'm so sorry, but they're... they did them over pretty badly. They're catatonic at the moment."

She ignores this. Her beautiful Frank and his vivacious wife could not possibly be 'catatonic'; they are Longbottoms, and Longbottoms, even by marriage, are always dignified. She will take no notice. She pulls out one last dead leaf.

But three minutes later she's in St Mungo's, talking urgently to her child.

"Frank." She waits, her breathing steady despite her terror.

"Frankie, darling."

Her boy, her handsome, intelligent son, is staring at nothing. She has to watch for the covers rising over his chest to be certain that he's even breathing. His eyes, underlined by bags that she's never noticed before, are fixed on a crack in the ceiling; the lashes do not quiver. His jaw is clenched, and she's willing to bet that his teeth are gritted.

Stop that, she wants to say, it'll make your teeth fall out. But she remains silent. Her heart is still contracting, and she's not allowing herself to think about what this means. She simply sits alongside the bed, waiting for her son to come back to her.

After an hour or so, the Healers gently usher her away, and she remembers Alice.

"Alice, love." Some people only use endearments when it's too late for the other person to hear, she realises. Certainly Alice isn't taking anything in at present; she's barely recognisable with her white hair and her screaming fits and shivering silences.

Augusta is relieved when she's pulled aside once more.

This time it's Neville; they've kept him in, too, unsure of how he's been affected. Augusta stands inadequately by a cot that seems to swallow him up, unable to say a word. She looks at the Healer who's hovering at a decent distance. He swallows audibly.

"We don't think he was tortured - or at least, not seriously."

How do you define 'serious' torture? wonders Augusta furiously, but she wants to know everything, so she reins in her sarcasm.

"He's in shock, as far as we can tell with such a little fellow. He hasn't said anything - do you know whether he was talking yet?"

"He's nearly two," says Augusta indignantly, thinking of last Sunday lunchtime: Frank and Alice wrangling about whether they should go out that night and leave Neville to Augusta; Neville clambering around everyone's legs, using robes and chairs to hold himself up as he gabbled in his own language that only Alice seemed to understand. She takes a deep breath. "Yes, he's talking."

"Right. Well, maybe that'll come back after a while. We found him close by Mrs Longbottom... Junior. There's a possibility that whoever did this threatened the baby to get Alice and Frank to talk."

Augusta closes her eyes as if that will stop the horrific images. It doesn't, of course; they're emblazoned across the black space inside her mind like a hellish medieval pietà.

"Although what they were supposed to know is anybody's guess at present," continues the Healer. "I suppose the Aurors will find that out in time."

Augusta looks at Neville again; she can't bear this man with his logic and his assumptions. Healers are trained to be dispassionate, to ensure that they are calm enough to perform their work properly. He knows nothing about her family, and his imagination is far too limited to have any idea of what Frank, Alice and Neville may have gone through.

Neville is watching her solemnly from behind his thumb. At least he's moving normally, unlike his parents.

"We'd like to keep the baby in overnight," the Healer says. Augusta is starting to hate the practised reassurance of that voice despite the very unreassuring words.

"You'll keep me overnight, too," she says, leaning down to pluck Neville from his blankets.

"Please don't touch him, Mrs Longbottom," the voice says sharply. "We don't know how that may affect him."

Augusta gets Neville cuddled up against her bosom before she turns to face the Healer again.

"This is my grandson, who may well have been tortured, and who has at the very least witnessed the torture of his parents. While they are incapacitated, I am in charge of his care." Neville shifts slightly, and she glances down before wrapping both arms tightly around him. He's heavy, but still so little, effortlessly buried in her robes. She feels a small hand moving against her collarbone. "And as I said, I'll need a bed for tonight. I shall sleep at my son's bedside, and Neville will need to be moved into the same room, so I can keep an eye on him."

The Healer's professional expression flickers to irritation and back. "I'll have it dealt with," he says, and walks away.

The dim hospital lamp illuminates little apart from the glint of Frank's eyes, which only rarely succumb to blinking. They must be terribly dry, thinks Augusta, making a mental note to speak to a Healer about it when they next check up on him.

Neville is asleep behind her, finally. He hasn't cried or said a word, but at least he's sleeping now.

Alice is sedated a few doors away, after her father broke down and pleaded with the Healers. Her parents are with her, and so Augusta has the consolation of knowing that she is exactly where she should be: by her injured son's bedside.

She is woken by the clatter of crockery on a tray outside the cubicle. She jerks upright, eyes going directly to Frank, who shows no sign of having moved while she slept. Neville is just stirring; she picks him up gently and sits him on her lap, folding up the camp bed on which she's been sleeping with a swish of her wand.

She watches Neville, who is watching Frank, who is watching goodness knows what. Is he thinking anything at all? It's impossible to tell.

Neville stirs on her lap, and she wonders whether it is cruel to keep him here; perhaps it reminds him of whatever happened yesterday, or the night before - who knows how long the ordeal lasted? But a child needs its parents, and surely it is vital for him to know that his father is still alive? She cuddles him close.

"It's all right," she assures him, looking at Frank. "Everything's going to be all right."

She arrives home to letters of condolence from Fudge and Crouch, along with promises of punishment for the perpetrators, whoever they may be. These she sets aside for perusal over dinner.

Algy and Enid are waiting: Algy shocked out of his usual bonhomie; Enid as cold and distant as ever. Such a strange couple, Augusta thinks as usual, and then, I don't want to see anyone. But it means that she can leave Neville with them and go where it would be cruel to take him.

Frank and Alice's living room is a shambles: armchairs overturned and spilling foam, ornaments shattered, the carpet studded with soil and trampled herbs. Neville's baby chair is under the stairs, a stray blue leg beneath one of the windows. A trail of milk indicates Neville's route once the chair was overturned.

It's hard to gaze at the scene and not hear screams, yells, gasps of pain; Neville's wails. Cruel laughter, too - for whatever was done to her son and his wife, it is clear that it involved malice and sadism, whether aforethought or otherwise.

Time to get back to Neville, she thinks, and Apparates home before the investigating Aurors locate her.

Her fury builds slowly. At first, it is directed at Neville who, after three days of silence, cries incessantly for four more. He cries for his parents, so she takes him into St Mungo's with her, but then he doesn't stop, so she takes him away again. Mustn't upset the patients.

Next it's the Healers, who are failing to bring her Frank and his wife back to life. They hover just outside the cubicles, chatting quietly, using phrases she wouldn't understand even if her hearing wasn't deteriorating, and then smugly walk away, leaving Augusta, Frank, Alice and Neville to deal with reality.

Only then does she turn to the culprits. There are five of them; they have confessed, it seems, and none of them is a surprise except Barty Crouch - the son, not the father. She reads articles about Bellatrix Lestrange in the newspapers, and recognises fanaticism at its worst. Augusta remembers Druella Rosier (now Black) from school, and wonders how it feels to know that your daughter tortured people for fun, or perhaps out of misplaced loyalty for a disgraced mentor - which does not seem much better. She considers paying Druella a visit, but has no idea what she would say and does not wish to expend her dignity in pointless shouting matches.

The prisoners are sent to Azkaban (she doesn't attend the trial, although she's tempted to do so when she sees the lawyer's face relax on hearing her decision). Perhaps she should campaign for their punishments to be increased; there were calls for the Dementor's Kiss to be administered, according to the Daily Prophet.

But Frank and Alice are still living their punishment, and Augusta wants the perpetrators to suffer for at least as long.

Alice is the next target of her anger. When the panic attacks fade to weekly epics, she creeps silently about the ward, eyeing everyone in the vicinity as if they might turn on her until Augusta wants to shake her. Alice always had high standards as a wife, a mother, an Auror. But now even Neville is treated as a potential threat, and he learns quickly not to reach out to her. Augusta holds his hand tightly as she watches him shrinking inwards, and wonders how on earth she is to help him through this.

Then Frank, who lies in his bed like a sulky teenager and never responds to her chitchat. One afternoon, she is so enraged by his disregard for her that she shrieks at him for several minutes and then walks away. Turning as she reaches the curtain, she sees that he is still staring aimlessly into space.

Then Neville again - Neville, who appears to have caught some of Alice's timidity. He shrinks from every harsh word, and cries when a voice is raised. She shouts at him because she can, because he is a normal person and not an invalid, and because she is terrified that at any moment some injury of his will be revealed - perhaps a gap in his mental faculties, or a botched memory charm.

She returns to their house almost every day at first. She must have it cleaned up, she tells herself, for when Frank and Alice are ready to come home. But every time she picks up some rubbish, or sweeps up some dead leaves, she thinks, This is where it happened; this is where my Frank's mind evaporated; this is where Neville witnessed what no child should see. Instead of clearing away the mess, she curls up amongst it and buries her face in her arms.

The general consensus from the Healers is that Neville wasn't tortured. His concern for his parents, however (she's seen him crawling over Frank and patting him on the cheek, desperate for a response), leaves little doubt that he witnessed events and at least partly understood their horror.

Augusta tries to persuade him to talk about it. "What did you see?" she asks him, and he flinches at the urgency in her voice. "What did you see?" she repeats. "Tell me what you saw!"

But he only runs from her; she finds him crying silently into the quilt by the side of the bed that is still too tall for him to climb into alone.

Neville is the last person to have seen Frank in his right mind, and this makes Augusta terribly jealous.

Two weeks after the attack, she notices that Frank's stubble is getting out of hand. She shaves him herself, before seeking out an orderly to demand to know why she's had to do so. The man looks uncomfortable and guilty, but doesn't really have an answer.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs Longbottom. What with all the Healers and Aurors to-ing and fro-ing, we haven't had a minute."

Waving this away, Augusta returns to her son. Insistently, she summons him back to life, using reminiscences, caresses and peremptory orders. Nothing works. Frank simply stares into space, his incessant drumming on the chair arm the only response to her challenges.

She returns home with Neville, endures Algy and his wife and their terrible advice for dinner. After his initial, protracted outburst of tears, Neville is still crying a lot, more than she remembers him ever doing before, but perhaps that's because now she's in sole charge of him. Still, she thinks crying is probably good after all he's been through, even if it isn't very manly. Against the Healers' orders, she carries him in to see his parents every day, in the hope that his presence will awaken something in them.

It doesn't. Her heart takes a huge leap one day, about three weeks into the ordeal, when Frank begins to talk again; but when she hears what he has to say she feels sick and covers Neville's ears.

Shaving becomes a daily ritual, and she no longer asks the staff why they can't find time to do it.

Alice is moved next door to Frank, so that they share a kind of double cubicle. The Healers seem less eager these days to stop and offer false cheeriness. Augusta senses their unease, and also their disinterest. After six months or so, she confronts the specialist.

"You have to help Frank; you can't just leave him like this! He used to be so articulate, so happy, so intelligent…"

The Healer gives her a professional smile that sags at the edges.

"Mrs Longbottom, as you know we have very little experience with this kind of problem. Our tests indicate that Frank and Alice are doing as well as can be expected-"

"No, no, you don't understand," she interrupts him. "My Frank, he wasn't dim, you know. And Alice was highly qualified; you know what it takes to become an Auror these days. Just because you never knew them before, you can't simply assume that they were meant to end up this way."

The impossibly young man looks ostentatiously at his watch. "I'm sorry, Mrs Longbottom. I must be elsewhere. Make an appointment downstairs, and we'll discuss this properly another time."

She reads to Frank: news from the Prophet, letters from old friends, even some of his old schoolbooks. Frank was never a keen reader, but he did like to keep up with current affairs, and he had been an excellent student.

Neville, on the other hand, is displaying an aptitude for absent-mindedness. Augusta wonders with a shiver of horror whether the Healers were wrong in their assessment of him. If Frank has forgotten everything, except when he speaks in that terrible monologue of which he appears unaware, and Alice only remembers things that require sedation, then where does that leave Neville?

Her fear makes her shout at him when he leaves his toys with his mum, or drops his outer robe unnoticed in a shop. What did they do to him?

She takes out photographs of Neville before - before - and watches him giggle and perform for the camera. There were tricks he used to do; annoying habits he used to have, but now she thinks that she'd give an awful lot for one good raspberry-blowing session.

Frank's life is acquiring something of the routine. Augusta arrives in the morning to shave, wash and dress him, and calls again briefly in the evening to put him to bed. Sometimes, as she tends to him, she catches him looking at her sadly, and wonders with a jolt of horror whether he realises what he's been reduced to. He can't, can he? If he did, he would wake up; his senses would return to normal, despite everything that the Healers have said!

"You're a hero, Frank," she tells him, just in case. "My brave boy!" She cuddles him, holding his arms in place around her, and shudders with tears for a few minutes. When she lays him down again, neither the direction of his gaze nor the expression on his face has changed; she is not sure whether to be relieved or bitter.

The flurry of visitors dwindles rapidly. Most friends and colleagues are too horrified by the changes in Frank and Alice to last for long, especially when they realise that these changes might be permanent. There are various categories of visitor: some sit in awkward silence, others gossip heartily of trifles, and still others speak loudly and slowly, as if addressing a stupid child. Most leave weeping, and very few return more than once. Augusta is pathetically grateful to those who surprise her - like Alastor Moody, who barks his news at Frank as if giving orders to one of his Aurors. Not that Frank responds any differently to this, or gives any sign of recognition; but at least young Alastor is making an effort. Augusta disdains all the weak characters who slink away, embarrassed by Frank and Alice's newfound obtuseness.

Albus Dumbledore calls in several times; he is one of those who chats cheerfully to the patients, pats Frank on the shoulder and kisses Alice's cheek when he arrives and when he leaves. He takes Augusta's hands on his way out, his eyes full of sadness, but there is nothing he can do or say, and they both understand that. She is grateful to him for not attempting platitudes.

Life takes on a semblance of normality again. Augusta speaks to the Registrar, and agrees that St Mungo's staff can tend to Alice and Frank's bodily needs, since they are both becoming too heavy for her to lift, magically or otherwise. That is not strictly true: it is more the fact that she cannot bear to lift Frank one more time, to wipe his bottom or inspect his bedsores or pull another clean shirt over his unresponsive body. She thinks that if he catches her eye one more time in his ignominy, her heart might break. The duties that she once took on with officious, angry pride are relinquished with humble relief; cheerful, clinical orderlies take over these jobs, and Augusta becomes merely a visitor again.

She goes in less often these days, but is always careful to remind Frank of his exploits as a boisterous teenager, often ending with, "You were a character all right, weren't you, darling?" And always, always, she waits for a reaction, and she never, never gets one. Except that occasionally she thinks she perceives a flash of anger in his calm brown eyes, and horror strikes her: the suspicion that she cannot banish with any logic, that perhaps he really does have moments, just occasionally, of lucidity.

She will not think of this, though. She puts the thought away, even though it means putting away hope of his recovery, because the idea that Frank might understand her treatment of him, might even comply with it for his own reasons, is too horrible to comprehend.

Alice's father dies suddenly (a heart attack) and her mother, after one final visit St Mungo's, does not return. Augusta understands, but this does not make her less bitter towards Penelope Grant: surely a mother's love is more important than a mother's (or a wife's) heartbreak?

Augusta herself settles into her role of martyr; she develops stock answers to tentative questions about Frank's wellbeing, ranging from the cheery (He's very well!) to a brave smile and the assurance that he is as happy as he can be in the circumstances, depending on whom she is addressing.

She talks of Frank and Alice constantly to Neville, who is still too quiet. She shows him photographs from before, points to his parents and relates anecdotes about them. In hospital, she includes both Frank and Neville in conversations: "You remember, Frank, don't you?" and, "Can you imagine what a scallywag your father was, Neville?" For three-way conversations, these ones are extremely silent.

When Neville is five, Alice begins giving him gifts. At least, perhaps Alice believes they are gifts, and clearly Neville regards them as such. To Augusta they are merely scraps of paper and pieces of junk. And yet, part of her is jealous: here is a connection between mother and son, one that she no longer has with Frank. It cannot be, no, it certainly is not any more than simple whimsy on Alice's part. She tells Neville this in no uncertain terms. He cries in protest at first, but is quickly worn down, and then he cries even harder. She feels a twinge of pity for him, but it's vital that he understands the situation. The world has been cruel to him, and he must learn to bear it if he is ever to be a man.

She pretends not to see when he hoards his mother's tokens; nevertheless, whenever she discovers a stash of them, she throws them into the bin.

When Neville goes to Hogwarts (oh, the relief, after Algy's ridiculous stunts!), she misses him most when she visits St Mungo's. Alice and Frank are often together during the day now, and sometimes, as she fumbles for a new topic of conversation, she feels as if they are judging her. It would be nice to have Neville there to even up the teams. She refuses to contemplate the possibility that Neville might take their side, and relieves her feelings by writing to him: long, earnest screeds in which she compares all of his achievements to date with those of his father at the same age.

Things always revert rapidly back to normal, or what passes for it, when Neville is home for the holidays. Every couple of days, they visit Frank and Alice; then they go home and talk about other things. After Neville's sixteenth birthday, which occurs a few weeks after his encounter with Bellatrix Lestrange and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Augusta no longer throws out the piles of presents that Alice has given him. She can't say why she has stopped, exactly, but she feels obscurely that Neville is now an adult, able to make his own decisions and mistakes. She will always be his grandmother, and a strict one to boot, but there is an entente between them. When he writes to tell her that he will not be taking Transfiguration at NEWT level, explaining clearly why the subjects that he has chosen are preferable, she does not protest. Neville is growing up and away from her; if she is not careful, he will soon be as distant as Frank is.

Two weeks before his seventeenth birthday, on a rainy July evening, he knocks on the door. Augusta, having read the extra edition of the Daily Prophet, is unsurprised.

He shifts from one foot to the other as she hands him tea, then Butterbeer, then whisky, describing Voldemort's defeat in monosyllables. No, he doesn't know exactly what Harry did, only that Voldemort is no more. His hand is shaking around his glass. He has acquired a tan over the summer, and it suits him, present paleness notwithstanding.

Augusta manoeuvres him into the lounge, and finally, he comes out with it.

"Bellatrix Lestrange and the others are dead." He speaks the words with such precision that she wonders how often he's said them in his mind.

"I know."

"I - I killed her. The others were already dead."

"I know."

He looks up at that, and she nods towards the paper. "They're calling you a hero." Instinct tells her not to smile, not yet.

"I didn't exactly mean to," he says defensively. "I - I tried, actually, and I couldn't do it. She laughed at me, and I tried again, and I still couldn't. I couldn't cast the spell."

"You know perfectly well that that's no bad thing," says Augusta firmly, although part of her wants to cheer him for avenging his parents. She wishes suddenly that she could lessen the space between them, but three feet might as well be a mile where they are concerned.

Neville remains silent until she prompts him. "You couldn't do it - and no blame to you. What happened, then?"

He stares at the floor; his body is taut, she notices, like a spring that doesn't know how to uncoil.

"She was on fire, see," he says at last. "There was fire everywhere - it wasn't surprising. You really had to be careful, and I think she was too...too deranged to be watching where she was going."

Augusta nods, and clenches her fists in anticipation. She hopes Bellatrix Lestrange suffered, she bloody hopes the bitch died in agony, although that will not go even a quarter of the way towards making up for what Frank and Alice, she and Neville, have suffered.

"Anyway, she was laughing - at me - and I turned away, and then...um, then I heard her screaming." He is shaking now, or perhaps it's just that every part of his body is in motion, in reaction to his nervous tension. "The noise was - it was horrible. Horrific." He looks at her, and then quickly away. "I know I was too young to remember, but - I thought maybe...it reminded me of my mum."

Augusta remembers Alice's screaming fits, and wonders how much worse the night of the attack must have been. Jaw set, she nods.

"I just - I had to stop it. I couldn't let anyone suffer like that." He takes a gulp of air. "So I - I killed her. I just did it." Now a gulp of whisky. "Just like that. I know I should've put out the flames and tied her up, or something, but... I just did what occurred to me." He exhales through a sob. "I imagine the Aurors will be here to arrest me in a while."

Augusta gathers her courage, and moves to sit beside Neville on the sofa. As her hand closes over his, his features harden and he looks resolutely away, until his jaw begins to wobble. Now, finally, she can take him in her arms, the way she did that terrified toddler, and tears run down her face as she listens to Neville's incoherent weeping, punctuated by gasps of, "I'm sorry," and deep breaths, and loud sniffs. She holds him close, and thinks that perhaps this is what she should have been doing all along. They are a team, just as Frank and Alice were - and in some ways still are - a team.

When the tears threaten to become hysterical, she pulls away slightly and offers him a handkerchief. With one final apology, he blows his nose and looks at her shyly. Augusta is a tall woman, but sometime over the past year, Neville has eclipsed her. She likes it, she realises.

"I think you'll find that no one will be arresting you over Bellatrix Lestrange's death," she says briskly. "The woman's no loss to society, and I imagine there were plenty of other people killed this afternoon. The Prophet certainly seems to think so."

Neville drags the newspaper towards him, wiping his face with the handkerchief, and then with his hands and sleeves. When he has composed himself sufficiently - or perhaps he really was reading - he looks back at her. "Do you think we should tell Mum and Dad?"

Patting her hair, Augusta stands up. "I think your parents need to hear about their brave son," she says.

He looks at her warily. "I don't want to be some kind of hero. I'm not."

She watches him, amazed at the way his expressions constantly cycle between those of Frank and Alice. The thick, wavy hair he inherited from his father; the moon face that has acquired a look of determination - something she'd almost forgotten about Alice. The way he holds himself, self-deprecatingly but with a measure of confidence. The deep brown irises, undimmed despite the smudges of pink and black around his eyes. You're my hero, she thinks, and is surprised at herself. She won't tell him, of course, but perhaps a little encouragement might be called for. Aloud, she says, "I think others might disagree with you. But we won't call you that, if you'd rather not." She reaches for her best hat. "You'll just have to indulge a proud grandmother, for once, while she tells her son all about her grandson's exploits."

There is real relief in his smile. She takes his arm, and together they make the familiar trip to St Mungo's.