The Curse of Charon

Chapter Fourteen - The Lost Boy

Neville put the last stroke of his quill to the paper, then shook the surplus ink into his inkbottle, screwed the lid back on and put it on his bedside table. Holding the quill in front of him, he stared blankly at it for a few moments, then went to put it away, before deciding to wash it. He took the small stack of parchments off his bed and put them in his drawer, making sure to tuck them out of sight. Then he went into the bathroom and let the water from the tap wash the ink off the nib of his quill, his favourite eagle-feather quill, a quill that he would probably never see again. He went back to his bed, took out the case for the quill, the quill and case that his parents had left to him, the one his mother and father had written their last words with, and realised that the words on the parchments in his drawer were probably the last he would ever write as well.

He was struck by a deep and all-consuming sadness, a sense of grief for himself, and his lost soul. He wanted to take out the quill pen again and write more and more, make sure that his last words were words worth reading. He wanted to see his parents again, and tell them that he was sorry but they would never be able to see him again, because he had to go.

That was the only thing that he was sure of. He had to go. There was no alternative, none whatsoever. It was the best deal for everyone concerned. They got rid of Neville, and he got rid of himself. He would never again have to wake up to another day of hell on earth. He would never again have to wake up to a dull, throbbing depression, deep within his heart. He would never again have to wake up. That thought alone was comforting to him.

He knew it would be cold up in the tower so he put a jumper and a scarf on. He also took his favourite childhood toy, Ted, to cling to, because he knew that this would be the scariest thing he had ever done. He had to be brave and strong and Ted would help him do this. Ted would help him seal his fate in the pale light of the windy morning.

He was very afraid, both of what he was about to do and what lay beyond, but he knew he had to do it. He knew it was the only way to stop the pain, pain so great he couldn't live with it for a moment longer.

Anyone looking at this boy, this ordinary boy, might have thought he was going for a walk in the early morning light, taking his teddy along too. But Neville knew better. He certainly was taking a walk; a walk to remember. These steps he would take up to the Astronomy Tower would be the last he ever took, the deep breaths of frozen air up there would be the last he ever breathed.

He saw his roommates sleeping in the early morning sunlight, and realised with a pang that he would never see any of them again. He felt tears, tears he could not control, roll down his cheeks. He wept for Dean, who had beaten him in their recent fight, but who had always been a good friend. He wept for Seamus, dear old Seamus. He wept for Ron, who had been a decent and kind prefect, who had stood up for him time and time again. He wept for Harry, beautiful Harry, such a tortured boy, so troubled in his short life. He wept long and hard for Harry, having to lean against a post of his four-poster bed to remain upright, and the thought of never seeing Harry again almost made him take off his scarf and get back into bed.

But he did not. Instead he sat on his bed, trying to control himself, and realised that he was not weeping for Seamus or Dean or Ron or Harry. He was weeping for himself. He saw himself finally as he would be seen by anyone else, as a poor boy, sick with misery and self-loathing, and he cried for this boy, who had forsaken himself for the greater good of the world, a world which he felt would be better without him.

"Neville," he said quietly through his tears. "Neville I'm sorry, I'm sorry for what I've done to you, for what I have to do to you."

He was no longer Neville; the boy clutching a bedpost was no longer Neville at all. Neville was dead already, buried deep and cold somewhere within the monster he had become, a monster bent on self-destruction. Neville slept in peace, and soon the monster would too.

With a great heave of effort, he pushed himself off his bed and walked out of the door of the dormitory, still clutching Ted. He took his final walk down the steps into the dormitory, clambered through the portrait hole for the last time and made his way through the labyrinth of corridors and staircases until he came to the staircase he needed. It was a spiral one, roughly cut out of local stone, and it rose for many, many feet. Slowly he trudged up it, counting the steps as he went, clutching the wall whenever he felt he was falling.

Eventually he reached the top of the tower, the tower he spent one evening in every week gazing up at the astral blanket above. He had never been much good at Astronomy, but he had enjoyed looking up at the pretty diamond patterns studded on the indigo sky. Now he looked up through the glass domed ceiling and saw the sickly yellow light of dawn playing on the pale blue morning, streaked with an occasional cloud.

He had been up here so many times that he knew exactly where to find his final destination. There was a small balcony in the tower, almost opposite from the entrance, which was just large enough for a single student to sit out with a telescope on a particularly fine night. The doors that separated this balcony from the main tower were large and French, with panels of glass. He tried the handle and found them to be unlocked. Then he opened them and stepped out onto the balcony. The cold hit him immediately, as did the beauty, for the view was exquisite. The sun, bright and flaming orange, was rising slowly from behind a far-off hill, casting wonderful shadows and reflections onto the lake which he could make out past the lawns. He took another step towards the edge of the balcony and looked down over the rail. Far below were the greenhouses, and he could see the patch of grass and path that was still splattered with Dean's and his own blood. There would be more blood spilt there this morning. There had to be. There was no other way.

His breathing was harsh and quick now, and his heart pounded in his chest like nothing had ever pounded inside him before. He could feel again. The beautiful dawn had awoken him and freed him from his melancholy prison of numbness and despair. He cast another look on the sunrise, and drank in the beauty of the cold and the dawn and the day, and the trees and the water and the air and the grass, all the things he would never see again. The orb rising in the East was his fire, the lake his water, the ground his earth. The snow that topped a mountain on the horizon was his ice, and the wind that whipped and buffeted around him was his air. He was a child of the elements, and they coursed through his veins like quicksilver.

He could feel once more, feel the intense loveliness and splendour of the vision before him, feel the cold, feel the hunger that gnawed in his stomach, and the hunger that lay in his heart. Nothing mattered any more. Nothing but completing this, his final action. Nothing was of any more importance, because nothing more could come to any good as long as he was alive.

He took another step towards the barrier between life and death, the one thing that held him back from falling, and revelled for a few moments in the thought of his own glorious death.

Then he mounted it, his footing firmer and surer than it had ever been before in his life. This was his destiny, he was sure of it.

He spread his arms out wide and embraced the day as it rose to meet his end.

"I'm free," he cried, loud enough for the whole world to hear. "I'm free!"

Then he took another step, a step into absolute nothingness, for beyond the barrier there was nothing to support him, nothing that would hold his weight, nothing until the impact of the ground below.

He fell, and fell, and fell, and fell. Until he could fall no more.

*

Charlotte Perkins was a second-year, a Ravenclaw, and had a passion for early morning walks. She also enjoyed writing poetry, and the beauty of the mornings around the castle was usually enough to inspire her. She had taken a particularly pleasant route this morning, around by the lake and back up by the greenhouses and Astronomy tower.

As she walked up the slight hill towards the base of the tower, where rumour had it there had been a fight between two sixth-year Gryffindors the previous day, she saw something lying in the grass. At first it appeared to be a large animal, perhaps a dog, but on closer inspection it was a person. A boy to be more precise, and to be even more precise than that it was Neville Longbottom. She knew of Neville, almost everyone had heard of his terrible memory and knack for getting into trouble with Professor Snape, but she had never spoken to him.

Thinking he was sleeping, Charlotte approached him and shook his shoulder slightly.

"Neville," she said. "Neville, wake up."

There was no response, but as she went to touch his shoulder again she noticed a red stain blossoming on the collar of the shirt he wore beneath his red jersey. She put her hand to his jumper and found it was wet and slightly sticky, and that her fingers had turned red as well, a similar shade to that of his collar.

"Oh God," she said. "Neville, can you hear me? Neville, you're bleeding!"

There was still no response. She knew she could not leave him unattended, he was obviously injured, but there was no one around, so she called loudly for help.

*

"I am very, very sorry that you had to find Mr Longbottom like that, Miss Perkins."

Dumbledore peered over his spectacles at the small blonde girl who sat in the chair across his desk. She was chewing nervously on her thumbnail.

"How is he, Headmaster?" she asked.

Dumbledore looked very solemn, far graver than she had ever seen him before.

"What I have to tell you now I am even more sorry for. Mr Longbottom was dead when Madam Pomfrey reached him. Did you say he was unresponsive when you found him and tried to rouse him?"

Charlotte nodded.

"Then, I believe he may have been dead when you found him as well. This is a terribly tragic even to have occurred. Mr Longbottom was admired by many and had a great number of friends."

"There's something I don't understand, Sir," she said softly.

"What is that, Miss Perkins?"

"What was he doing up in the tower so early. I mean, it was a terrible accident, but how did it come about."

Dumbledore looked up at her sadly, his blue eyes deeper and more mournful than she could ever remember them being.

"We are currently working on the assumption that it was not an accident."

She gasped.

"No," she said. "No...you don't think he...he tried to...?"

"Not only did he try to, but unfortunately he succeeded. His friends had noticed many changes in his behaviour in the past months, and a stack of parchments addressed to various people were found in his drawer when we searched the dormitory."

"That's awful," she said, still chewing on her thumbnail.

"I'm very sorry you were caught up in it. Now, can I get you anything?" he asked.

"No thank you," she replied. "I'm all right."

"Well, if you ever need to talk to anyone, I am always here, as is Professor McGonagall, and your Head of House of course. If you don't want to talk to a teacher, I would recommend Nick, the Gryffindor ghost."

"Thank you Professor," she said, and left the room.

*

Dear Malfoy,

Rot in hell, you stupid bastard. You'll never be good enough for Harry, just leave him alone. He deserves better than scum like you.

Sincerely,

Neville Longbottom

Draco was slightly surprised to have been included in the letter giving after Neville's suicide, and he was shocked and disgusted with what he saw. Shocked because he hadn't expected it, and disgusted because he knew it was true, and he hated that it was true.

*

Dear Dean,

I'm sorry I was so nasty to you. I really like you still...I just haven't been myself for a while. Congratulations on winning our fight, and I hope you and Seamus are very happy.

Neville.

Dean found the letter sweet and touching, although he was still very angry with himself, and with all of them. They should have known something was wrong, should have made him talk to them or talk to someone else. They should have stopped him, instead of being so caught up in their own lives that they forgot he was there.

*

Dear Seamus,

Thank you for being a good friend to me. We had some good times together, didn't we? I hope that you and Dean have a happy life. Don't worry about me, I'm better off where I am.

Neville.

Seamus had read the letter so many times, had fingered every word that Neville had written, and all the tear-marks that Neville had left on the page, and he had added to them with some tears of his own. He felt shocked, and very fragile. It was so scary to think that Neville had been living with them and with this simultaneously for so long, and no one had ever guessed. He folded the letter up again for the hundredth time and put it in the pocket of his trousers.

*

Dear Ron,

You were always good to me, you always stood up for me, and you were a kind and fair prefect. I'm glad I got to know you better, because you're a great person, and I know you'll make your mother proud. Do that for me, Ron. Make your mother proud like I never can.

Be good to Hermione as well. She's one of the kindest people I ever met, and I owe her so much.

Your good friend,

Neville.

Ron had been stunned by the news, which he had received early that morning after Professor Dumbledore had insisted on searching the dormitory. He was still stunned now, and still didn't quite know how he felt about it. He had taken Harry to the Hospital Wing earlier to see Neville before his body was sent to his grandmother. Harry had cried all the way there and all the way back, and Ron suspected it had something to do with his letter.

Ron himself hadn't shed a single tear yet. He didn't think he could.

*

Dear Hermione,

Thank you so much for all the help you gave me in class, and with my homework, and for all the kindness you showed me. You were always a really good friend to me, and I always really liked and respected you.

You'll go far, Hermione, I know you will.

Love,

Neville.

Hermione had cried when she had first read her letter, and was crying now again for the second time. She would really miss Neville; it would be so strange not having him there in the common room or the library all the time. It would be strange knowing she'd never see him again. She had declined to go and say goodbye to him when Harry and Ron had gone, preferring to remember him as he was.

*

Dear Gran,

I'm so so sorry. Truly I am. I know I'm all you've got, or more precisely I was all you had, but it wasn't any good. Really, it's better for everyone this way. Gran, I'm not hurting any more. I'm free now, I'm free.

It wasn't your fault, it wasn't anyone's fault but my own.

I love you so much, and I'm so sorry,

Neville.

Neville's grandmother had to sit down when she read the letter, which was enclosed with some others that Professor Dumbledore had sent her. It had been such a shock, she had had no idea, none at all, that Neville felt that way. Maybe she should have noticed something was wrong with him, or spoken to him, or just told him she loved him a little more often. Maybe there had been nothing she could have done.

There had been another letter enclosed with hers, one to Frank and Alice, which she took along to St. Mungo's.

*

Dear Mum and Dad,

I know you probably won't be able to read this, and if you can you probably won't be able to understand it, but it doesn't matter. I still want to say it.

Firstly I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was ever embarrassed by you. I should have been proud to have you as parents, because you fought for what you believed in and gave yourselves in return for the freedom of others.

I love you both, so much, much more than you will ever know, and although I'm sad that we didn't really get to spend much time together, I'm glad that I got to know and respect you in an entirely different way to the way in which most people see their parents. I always saw you as heroes. You were my heroes always.

I will always love you,

Your son,

Neville.

Neville's grandmother handed the letter first to Frank, who made nothing of it, and only glanced blankly at what it said. She sighed and passed it along to Alice. Although there was no way that Neville's mother could have understood what her son had written to her, and what he felt for her even until his death, his grandmother could have sworn she saw a flicker of what could only be described as love on Alice's blank face. The woman, so intelligent and beautiful once, now reduced to little more than a memory, burst into tears, and Neville's grandmother held Neville's mother in her arms.

*

Dear Harry,

I couldn't help it. Really, I couldn't. I tried to find a reason to hate you, every day I tried, but I could never quite stop loving you. I could never seem to tell you, either, and by the time I was ready to you were already with Malfoy. Don't think that I did this because of you, though. I can live without you, even if it hurts a little bit every day. It was everything else that hurt that caused me to take my life. It was the rest of the things that hurt me every day, and there were a lot of them.

I never stopped loving you, Harry, and I never will. You will always be the sun in my sky, the sun that will never die.

Neville.

Harry received the letter when Dumbledore had found them in Neville's drawer. It had reduced him to tears then, and still did now, eight hours later. Time certainly had flown, from when their dormitory had been invaded at 6 am, then a trip to the Hospital Wing with Ron.

That had been absolutely awful. He had pulled the screen completely around the bed where Neville's still-warm body had lain while they waited for his grandmother, and made Ron wait outside. Then he had cried so much, so hard, he had sobbed all over the body, the still-war body of his poor, dear friend. The letter now had some of Neville's blood on it, from where Harry had fallen to the floor in the throes of agony, the racking sobs rendering his own body uncontrollable. The letter had rested on Neville's scarlet breast, and absorbed some of the blood that had soaked through his clothes. Harry had Neville's blood on his own body as well, from when he had clutched at the corpse of his friend, willing life back into the inanimate body.

Ron had looked quite pale when he had finally emerged from the cubicle with the remains of a good man, and had had to prop Harry up for most of the walk back to the common room.

"Ron, why did you go out in the snow that evening?" Harry had asked on the way back, and when Ron had not answered Harry had dissolved into even more fits of tears, sobbing wildly about how he could have lost two friends this year instead of just the one.

He still didn't feel right, alone in his dormitory that evening, with the curtains closed around him. He felt empty. He wanted desperately to be with people, to go down to the common room, but he couldn't, not without seeing Neville's empty bed, a bed that he would never fill again.

Eventually, when he could bear his solitude no longer, Harry opened the curtains and walked towards the exit with his eyes shut. He knew exactly where to go, having groped around in the dark so many times. When he felt the familiar cool of the handle against his hot, clammy hand he opened his eyes again and walked down the steps, walked out of the common room, headed towards the Slytherin dungeon.

He met Draco half way, in the entrance corridor. The blonde stood awkwardly about a yard away from him, hands in pockets, unaware of exactly what to do. Then he saw how red Harry's eyes were, saw the tears welling up behind the feigned calm, and exactly what to do suddenly became clear. He enveloped Harry in an enormous hug, and held him tight.

"He's - dead," Harry spluttered, and started to cry again.

"Shhh," said Draco, fingering his hair. "It'll be all right."

Harry looked up at him, his eyes wet and blurred, and nodded.

"I know - as long as I have you."

Jeez, thought Draco. I can't believe I'm doing this to him. He trusts me, for God's sake!

*

"Neville Longbottom was a good boy, well-liked by his peers and teachers," said Dumbledore, addressing the whole school over dinner. The mood of the hall was sombre; the Gryffindors were in shock and disbelief, and the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were saddened by the news. Only the Slytherin table was making any sort of noise, laughing and joking as though it were any other day.

As Dumbledore continued his address, Michael O'Halley turned to Goyle.

"Aren't you glad we don't ever have to be injured by Longbottom's awful potions?"

Goyle nodded. Draco, who sat on the other side of Goyle, however, felt rather differently.

"How can you say that?" he asked, his face slightly flushed with anger. Goyle and O'Halley both looked at Draco, mouths open.

"What do you care?" Michael challenged.

"It's not about what I care. A boy has died. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Goyle and O'Halley ignored him and continued to talk between themselves. Draco looked over to the Gryffindor table, looked to where Harry was sitting, his friends around him, all of the quieter than usual, all of them seemingly droopy. Harry sat between Hermione and Weasley. He looked very small, like a little boy, and although he had stopped crying he was still looking at his lap, his head hanging. He found himself trying to quash the desire to go over to Harry and hug him.

Dumbledore spoke again.

"It is very important that we all think of Neville as he was, and as he would like us to think of him. Remember him as he lived, not as he died."