What Would You See?

"What Would You See?"

A Series of Short Stories by Ada Kensington

Every Summer, before returning to Hogwarts, Neville had to visit St. Mungos with his grandmother.

He dreaded it.

At the reception desk, the nurse offered him a kind, sympathetic smile as his grandmother filled out the visitor's book. He couldn't find it in him to return it.

The young nurse then directed them to a seat in the bright, comfortable and cheery little waiting room next door, where his grandmother slumped, exhausted, into one of the squashy armchairs and picked up an old, battered copy of "Witch Weekly," riffling through the dog-eared pages absently with red-rimmed eyes. Not a word passed between them. In the armchair opposite, Neville sat, in silence, clutching at a bunch of snow-white lilies his grandmother had insisted she buy for him at a stall in Diagon Alley just outside the hospital. Now, they were a little bruised and weeping at the ends of the stalks, where he had unwittingly crushed them, whilst staring intently at a patch of warm, peach wall behind his grandmother's head.

Apparently, they had been his mother's favourite flowers.

Then, after an indeterminable length, the kindly, soft-spoken, Dr Patil, popped his handsome head round the waiting room door and inquired, with a raised eyebrow:

"Longbottom?"

His grandmother gently put her magazine upon the table, gathered up her big, red handbag rather awkwardly and rose to shake Dr Patil's hand and nod in the affirmative. Dr Patil then turned and smiled soberly at Neville, who had risen shakily to his feet, still clutching at the lilies, and asked him softly:

"Hello, Neville. How is Hogwarts?"

Neville mumbled something about how badly he had done at Potions in the last year, scoring a miserable zero percent in his final exam, and Dr Patil shrugged good-naturedly and replied:

"Well, we can't be good at everything, can we? Parvati has told me that you do extremely well in Herbology."

Normally, Neville would have cheered up a little with this rare recognition of his talent in his favourite subject , but he just shrugged and said nothing. The silence continued for just long enough to become a little uncomfortable. It was clear that Neville was going to say no-more on the subject and that Mrs Longbottom was not about to add to the conversation, so Dr Patil smiled and asked:

"Are you ready?"

Neville's grandmother nodded and let Dr Patil lead the way, although they both knew the corridors by heart. Their escort was merely a matter of security and protocol.

The corridors were always cheerful, especially in and around the children's ward, where Neville would look in occasionally as he passed to see walls covered with thick, blobby paintings and bright murals and colourful bedclothes, scattered toys and picture books. Some children waved to him, but he could manage no more than a watery grimace. The windows were wide open, letting in a cool, refreshing breeze and a gentle sunlight played upon the gleaming floors and walls. There were always bustling nurses and striding doctors going to and from wards with busy haste.

The corridors were always cheerful. Yet, there was something about them that made Neville want to turn and run - run until he vomited from the pain, until dark bubbles burst in front of his eyes, until his lungs collapsed, until his heart stopped. There was something a little subdued, something melancholic behind the cheerful façade, the clinical tang that permeated all was the acrid smell of sickness, pain and death.

They got about halfway to their destination, when his grandmother took his hand. Neville was about to open his mouth to tell her that he was alright, when he saw the desperate look on her wizened face and his heart sank. This was the strong, upright, confident, capable woman upon whom he looked to for guidance and support... and this time, she needed him. She needed him for comfort and support.

Neville began to feel sick...

As Dr Patil strode onward, the light became less and the smell became stronger. The corridors here were much less cheerful. His grandmother started to cry, and Neville felt his eyes fill up with unshed tears, but he held them back bravely for her, and squeezed her hand that little bit tighter so that she would know that he was here for her.

When they came at last to the Psychological Trauma ward, Dr Patil stepped smartly in front of the grey door. It had no handle. With a complicated flourish of his wand, Dr Patil muttered the spell that would evaporate the door and grant Neville and his grandmother passage to the cold, dimly-lit ward within.

Dr Patil escorted them swiftly down the long, hushed corridor. The nurses and doctors in this ward were fewer and were more haggard and weary. On Neville's either side were the large, square, magically-reinforced glass windows that were, at the moment, opaque and grey as a sheet of cold steel. Behind each contained a small, bare, square room and one of the unfortunate inhabitants of the ward. The windows were, mercifully, soundproofed, but he always imagined he could hear, just on the edge of his hearing, the faint whimpers, the sobbing and the screaming within.

Neville's fists gripped the now limp and bleeding lilies unfeelingly, trembling, as they neared the glass window that would allow him to see his mother and father. His grandmother had stopped crying and was now wringing his hand in silent apprehension.

Slowing gradually and coming to an eventual halt to the right of a window in front of another similar blank grey door, Dr Patil waved his wand and it dissipated into hundreds of thousands of tiny glittering particles. He stepped through the space where the door had been and motioned for Neville and his grandmother to step through.

Neville's normally rosy face paled visibly, a glossy sheen on cold sweat coated his forehead. His stomach churned, making him nauseous, and his heart started to hammer rapidly against his heaving chest. Trembling, he took a few cautious steps forward - each footfall sounding as loud and hollow as a lead block thumping on granite - with his grandmother in one hand and the bruised lilies in the other, already knowing with a hollow certainty what he would find.

Lying, curled up and shivering, on two Spartan, iron, single beds lit by a single naked light bulb, were his mother and father. Pale and emaciated, their thin limp hair splayed out upon their pillows with large clumps missing where they had torn it out in their delirium, their faces slack and drooling gently, their calcareous fingers blue and bandaged, behind their vacant, glazed gazes, the memories of their torture were trapped - playing over and over in an inescapable cycle of pain and suffering.

When Neville entered, they never even glanced in their direction - bound internally to their own private torment - completely oblivious to the outside world... and to their own son.

Neville dropped his grandmother's hand and stood there, numb, as he always did.

The sight of his parents lying there never ceased to render him to a quivering wreck inside. He didn't dare look at his grandmother in case the sight of her sent him toppling over the edge, he just stood there, with the lilies hanging in one lifeless hand. He always thought that it must be worse for her... seeing her once gentle, strong, good-natured and intelligent son and his sharp, quick and beautiful wife reduced to the tragic, gibbering, strangers before him.

Neville had never really known his parents. At the time of their torture by the Dark Lord, Voldemort, they were already far gone. By the time he was old enough to visit them, they were far beyond aid. The doctors had said that their minds were ruined and could never be repaired. Nevertheless, Neville insisted that he continue to visit them, to keep their memory alive, and came every year with a small gift, no matter how much it hurt him.

Neville started to walk over to his parents - his throat thick and his eyes tearing - proffering the mangled bunch of lilies.

"H-here Mum. I've b-brought you some flowers..."

His mother said nothing, her wide, blue eyes staring blankly into space, her dressed hands clutching at her bedclothes.

When his mother did not respond, he knelt down beside her, smiling, and stretched over and lay the flowers at the foot of her bed.

"I-I'm doing quite well at school," he said quietly. "P-Professor Sprout says I'm really coming on. I got the second highest marks in the year - well... second to Hermione, of course, she's top of the year in everything. She's really clever. I think she'll be head girl someday. Potions isn't too good, though," he whispered tearfully, "I failed my last exam. Professor Snape gave me zero percent. I-I'm so afraid of him. Whenever I go into his class, I can't think... I keep feeling like he's watching me over my shoulder... watching for every mistake I make so that he can take points from Gryffindor. Practically all the points taken from Gryffindor are because of me," Neville continued sadly. "I'm so useless and clumsy. If it wasn't for Harry, then we'd never win the House Cup at all..." he trailed off and then began again, his voice choking with tears "I wish you were both here, so that you and gran could both come up to the school to defend me. I miss you..." Neville said, reaching out and placing a gentle hand upon his mother's shoulder.

Suddenly, with the touch, his mother flinched and her eyes started rolling wildly in their sockets. She began shriek and kick and thrash and claw at the bandages which stopped her from harming herself. Neville froze with fear and his mother's hand shot out and gripped him by the collar and pulled her terrified son sharply to her heaving chest, shaking him violently, her gaze focused on a dark point beyond reach and comprehension, screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming...

Mum... Please... Mum... It's me, Neville... Neville!

he could hear himself crying desperately, as his mother writhed in her private agony, clutching his collar tighter and tighter...

His head was spinning. He could hear his grandmother crying in the background and the pounding of running footsteps and Dr Patil's frantic yells as several people rushed towards him - and he felt two pairs of strong hands lift and separate him from his shrieking mother. Neville was dragged, bodily, away from the bed and was dumped onto the floor as the two doctors ran to join their colleagues at his mother's bedside. His grandmother knelt on the floor beside him and he fell into his grandmother's arms and wept as he watched his mother being restrained - flailing and jolting and scratching and tangling herself up in the bedclothes. Suddenly, she let out a ghastly scream that rose up and up and up... and in the bed next to her, her husband began to shriek...

"You'd better leave," Dr Patil called out, breathlessly. "You and your grandson are not safe here at the moment, Mrs Longbottom. You can wait, if you wish, but we're not sure if will be able to calm them down..." he trailed off as a frail hand caught him across the face.

Neville's grandmother nodded, with tears in her eyes, and wrapped her sobbing grandson's arm round her shoulder.

"Come on, son," she said, her low voice cracking with emotion. "Let's get you home."

Rising, Neville was lifted out of the room by his grandmother as she staggered blindly through the grey corridor. Behind him, voices screaming "stupefy" echoed down the passageway, and continued to ring in his ears until they were emerged into the daylight from the hospital where Neville slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

***

Neville opened his eyes and jerked upright, his chest heaving and his hair matted to his forehead in a cold sweat.

It was just a dream... Just a dream...

Reaching out, Neville opened his curtains and moonlight streamed into the room from the large, North Tower window, shining upon the beds of his dorm-mates, Harry, Ron, Seamus and Dean. From what his ears told him, they were still fast asleep.

Sighing, Neville swung his feet over the edge of the bed and slipped his feet into his new pair of tartan slippers his grandmother had sent him and rubbing his tired eyes, he rose and silently crossed the dormitory, opening the door and stepping outside to the cold, stone staircase and shutting it with a barely audible click, Neville wandered down to the Common Room alone. When he noticed that all the fires had been put out, he decided to go out for a little walk. If any teachers or Filch noticed him, he'd just explain to them that he couldn't sleep.

It usually worked.

... though he had never met Snape on any of his walks.

The thought of Snape made him shiver, but he could not face going back to bed in case the dream began again, and, contrary to popular belief, he was not scared of everything. With those thoughts in mind, Neville climbed down the stairs from the Gryffindor Tower and padded away in his tartan slippers - heading off in the general direction of the Great Hall.

***

An hour later, Neville desperately tried the handle of yet another door, and was completely and utterly lost. All the doors he had tried previously had been locked - even the one he had just come through! It had locked itself behind him! If all the doors in this corridor were like this, he could be trapped in here...

... and who knew how long it would be before they found him.

Neville moved on, beginning to panic and tried another door and yet another and another and another, and suddenly, to his surprise and relief, the door he had tried when he first entered the corridor creaked open slowly. Frantically, Neville seized upon this unlooked for opportunity, and dashed into the room, wedging a slipper between the doorframe and the door with remarkable foresight. Panting, he leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees, his round face clearly red with exertion even in the shadows of the dark room.

It was then that he saw the mirror.

There were no windows in the room, but the cold, glossy surface of the mirror shone silvery and smoky like a Pensieve, casting an eerie light all the way to the four corners of the room. Wisps of spectral luminescence curled lovingly around the ethereal entity and a strange mist drifted languorously around the great, taloned feet of the glittering, gold frame. An old dust sheet lay, forgotten, upon the floor under the thin cloud that was floating, ever closer, towards Neville. He stared at it, fighting the urge to run as it touched his feet. It was soft and gentle and it felt like there were voices calling to him. Whispering...

Slowly, without knowing why, Neville started towards the mirror. As he walked, the mist receded, until he stood before the mysterious entity which was enshrouded in gently glowing haze of ancient eldritch sorcery.

Suddenly, the churning clouds within the mirror, ceased and within the depths, Neville's reflection emerged and stood before him, complete with his mousy brown hair, his round, good-natured, rosy-cheeked face, his pale blue eyes and his sheepish smile.

But it wasn't Neville.

Two other shapes emerged from the smoky recesses of the mirror which made Neville's watery-blue eyes widen in wonder. Standing behind him, beaming with pride, were his mother and father as he had seen them in photographs before they had gone. His father, tall and strong and proud, with Neville's round, good-natured face, his mousy-brown hair and his sheepish smile. His mother, small and slim and frail-looking, with ash-blonde hair and his light blue eyes, placed a thin hand upon his shoulder and smiled.

Neville reached out and felt the air behind him. There was nothing there - no-one behind him. Pale tears leaked soundlessly from Neville's sleep-strained eyes. His parents were in St. Mungos, languishing in the Insanity ward for the rest of their lives, however short they might be now. Neville shook his head.

This can't be mum and dad...

Then an idea trickled into his already overfull mind.

Does this mirror show the future? Were the doctors wrong?

Something above the glass caught his eye, and he tore his gaze away to read the intricately carved inscription curved around the top:

"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi."

Puzzled, Neville's eyes darted back to the glass. His parents were still there, so he had another, longer look at the inscription.

Erised stra...? Is how no tyo...? No... I show no...? No... I show... not your face...

"...but your heart's desire!"

he whispered, aloud.

Now he knew, and with this moment of sad epiphany, an almost crippling ache of longing and despair began to clutch at his heart. He would never get his parents back, no matter how hard he wished he could. They would remain as strangers to him, until their madness consumed them - taking them away from him forever so that he could never see them again. There was no point anymore. He would never get them back...

Just as Neville was about to resign himself to despair, a glimmering light pierced the gathering darkness.

Gran...

Yes... Gran. He still had Gran. She needed him just as much as he needed her. He couldn't stop now. He had to keep on going. He had to keep visiting his parents. He had to keep their memories alive. It meant as much to her as it did to him.

I'll do it for Gran...

With a watery, but determined nod, Neville took one last look at his parents and gave them a wave.

"I'll be back to see you next summer..." he whispered.

The reflections did not wave, but merely smiled as they watched him tear his gaze away from the mirror and walk silently towards the door, slot his foot into the slipper he wedged into the door and shut the door behind him with a creak.

Somehow, Neville knew that none of the doors would be locked and that there would be no teachers prowling around. No doors were locked, and he had no bother at all trying to re-trace his steps as there were no teachers to hinder his progress. So when he reached the Gryffindor Tower ten minutes later, he kicked off his slippers and curled up under his thick duvet. In the morning, he would start writing a letter to Gran. From on top of his trunk, there came a small, accusing croak.

"Sorry, Trevor," he said, sleepily. "I just couldn't sleep. G'night..."

Neville reached over and closed his curtains and fell fast asleep - dreaming of home.