His First Fears

His First Fears

His earliest memory was of white faces that shone out of blackness, faces with terrible, cruel dark eyes. He had always been afraid of fierce, black eyes that dogged his memories. Their darkness glinting at him terrified him to the point where he would wet his pants.

His Great-Uncle Algie's sable-coloured eyes also glinted, particularly when he cracked jokes at his expense. Great-Uncle Algie terrified him; he could hurt him, and he had hurt him. Often. Even though Uncle Algie always claimed he had done it just to see how his he would react. Suprisingly, he had never reacted; he was usually stock-still with terror.

He had always been afraid of pale people. Once, when he had been poring over a book in Grandpa's old study, he had read that unnaturally pale skin was a characteristic of vampires. Vampires? That earliest memory had come back in full force and he had instantly remembered those shining black eyes, those white faces, those cruelly laughing mouths, with those big, sharp teeth. Blacks and whites. Teeth. Pain. Vampires?

He had closed his eyes, face scrunched up, lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth, whimpers pushing through them; he had gathered the book to his plump chest, and had rocked back and forth, willing, just willing the images to go away - but it was his most powerful memory and those images had not left him. And on the dark canvas on the insides of his eyelids, he had watched lurid flashes of colour blazing across blackness, lighting up white, harsh-featured faces vividly, and there had been screams... those screams... and that frenzied, frenetic activity - bodies twitching, contorting hideously in tune to that music, that... chant, sacred in its intonation, powerful in its resonance - a litany of Crucio, Crucio... so terrible. So powerful. He had fainted that time.

He had always been afraid of disappointing Gran. Her punishments were so stern. It was Gran who had caused him the greatest pain he had ever known in his life when she had suddenly turned her wand on his nearly two-year-old self, and had croaked out the words of a spell so powerful that it had almost ended him. He remembered excruciating pain; he remembered screaming that he was sorry, that he would never do it again; he remembered twitching and convulsing; he remembered vomiting blood; he remembered soiling his pants. He did not want to remember anymore, and mercifully, he stopped. Yet, all too often, that memory would also come, unbidden, unwanted, yet lucidly clear. And he would be afraid of Gran, all over again.

His only other memory of that day had been words he'd heard exchanged between Gran and Great-Uncle Algie, when he had been coming to...

'... never take him...'

'... dampen the...'

'... won't be detected by...'

'... Frank and Alice won't want...'

'... forever in St Mungo's ...'

'... no more magic...'

'... surely not a Squib...'

'... only way...'

He had been so afraid of Gran since then, he'd never had the courage to speak to her of this memory. Whenever he remembered, the questions roiled in his frightened mind: What had been dampened? What would his parents not have wanted? He had never dared to ask.

He had also never dared to ask why, when on that long-ago day he had bounced out onto the road, Gran had not congratulated him with the rest of the family; why she had sunk to her knees, instead, and had burst into tears, wailing, 'Forgiven! Forgiven!' Why hadn't she, as was her habit, berated him? Why had she started to cry, instead? He had been so terrified when he'd seen his formidable Gran break down...

Neville Longbottom had always been afraid of people, of the world, and at times, even of his own shadow. It was a such an unkind twist of irony that he had been sorted into the house whose watch-word was bravery.

The first draft can be found here => http://www.livejournal.com/users/mishty/61079.html