Prologue 2: The past lies like a nightmare over the present

Neville witnessed everything that was happening and refused to let Bellatrix leave Harry without a family, he couldn't let her do it again, not after what she did to his parents, not after the torture that made them completely insane.

'No! No! No!' thought Neville as he also rushed over to Sirius remembering all that she made him go through.

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[Neville Memories]

Neville only had vague memories of his parents.

After all, they had left him when he was only a year old.

But that didn't stop him from learning about them from his grandparents, he heard every story and saw every magical photograph he had with them.

They weren't many magical photographs he had with them, but they were enough for him to form wonderful memories, full of love and warmth.

His parents were happy to have him and they truly loved him.

His father, acting as a father should. Buying Neville his first toy broomstick.

Rolling the ball back and forth between them.

Laughing and playing.

As a father would do.

As most children remember.

Neville enjoyed watching this a lot as he never played like that with anyone after that, his grandparents loved him but his grand-uncles were more interested in his magic and the family honour than in him, while his grandmother had changed a lot after the death of her husband and son.

It was a difficult childhood for Neville with his grand-uncle Algie Longbottom, trying to force some magic from him, he catch Neville off his guard and try to force him to prove he had magic by any means possible, no one wanted him to be a squib since it would be shameful for the Longbottom such a thing, but sadly no matter what he did it was always in vain, Neville was always a deception to his family.

Once Algie pushed Neville into the water from Blackpool Pier; however, he almost drowned.

Another time while having tea when Neville was eight years old, Algie dangled him from an upstairs window of the house by his ankle, and accidentally dropped them when his wife Enid offered him a meringue.

Fortunately, Neville a second earlier before hitting the ground and crashing to his death used accidental magic and apparate safely a few feet away from where he was about to hit.

And then, after finally almost dying due to his great-uncle's carelessness, things didn't get much better.

Spending so much time being criticized and reprimanded made him shy and withdrawn, even a bit silly in his behavior as if he thought everything he did was wrong so he always hesitated.

He thought so much about everything before he did it that he ended up forgetting other things and this only made him get teased or even more reprimanded by his grandparents for being so forgetful.

But what hurt Neville the most was seeing his parents, or rather those who used to be parents to him..., but who were now just empty shells, with no memories or feelings for him.

Yes, they were alive in the physical body, but in mind and soul they were not them, his parents were long gone, and seeing them in that state was just a constant reminder for Neville of that fact.

The warm and loving parents he remembered were gone forever.

Since Bellatrix had tortured them and driven them insane, she had left only their bodies alive but taken everything else to mock him and his entire family.

To make the pain they felt even greater.

Neville remembers every day he went to visit them with his grandmother.

Every Christmas they went to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, entered the building, went up the lift, entered a room that housed Frank and Alice Longbottom, Neville's father and mother who didn't even know he was alive, didn't even know he was their son.

He would sit in the hard, stiff chair in his parents' room at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and look at them for any sign he could find that there was still something left in them, something he could hold on to, a glimmer of hope...

But his parents just looked back, uncomprehending, unknowing, and insensitive, they didn't know they were looking at their son, they were people who couldn't recognize him, and people he couldn't recognize.

Still, he tried to talk to them, but it was useless, there was never the slightest reaction, nothing at all.

When Neville looked into their blank eyes, he wished with all his heart that they could talk to him or at least say something, anything would be fine.

But no, that never happened and it never would, he knew, hoping was just a way to keep hurting himself.

It was a wasted hope.

A dream of something that could never be.

He knew he would never hear their voices speaking.

In fact, the entire hospital staff believed that they weren't even aware of his presence, and from the blank stares they gave him whenever he visited, Neville started to believe that their suspicions were correct.

Neville dreamed every night that he could do something, but he knew that there was no point in doing this as dreaming would not bring them back.

No, the only thing he could do was to avenge them, to deal with Bellatrix and stop her from doing anything as cruel and evil as what she had caused his family and certainly so many others too.

[End Neville Memories]

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But here he was now, watching with his own eyes firsthand as Bellatrix did harm again and probably took the only real family that Harry had still alive.

'No! Not this bloody time!'

It was then that Neville had this strange feeling as if magic was flowing through every muscle in his body.

Then something broke in him at that moment and in a rage-induced fury, he suddenly released his full magic unexploded upon them.

And in an exceptional display of speed and magic, Neville automatically apparate in front of Sirius with less than a second before the spell reached him.

If his grandparents were here they would notice that this was similar to what Neville had done just a second before he hit the ground and died when his great-uncle Algie Longbottom dropped him from the window of his house.

But it was then that the spell hit Neville clean through and he is lifted up into the air, a look of pain but no regrets upon his face.

Time seems to slow for Harry and Sirius as they watch Neville's descent.

They couldn't understand or believe what was happening, Bellatrix was no better than they were as she didn't understand how Neville could use magic so fast as to be able to do that, it was almost impossible.

As the three of them were in complete shock.

Neville began to fall backward, exactly towards the Veil..., and then he falls into the Veil, his body simply falling behind it. He does not reappear on the other side.

"Neville!" Harry screams and sprints for Neville.

Sirius furiously took care of Bellatrix disarming her as well as Lucius Malfoy and throwing her roughly away from where they were and then rushing over to Harry.

Harry leaps down towards the Veil, abandoning everything. Tears are streaming down his face. His wand drifts from his grasp and clatters behind him. He leaps to the lowest level and charges up to the dais.

Sirius reaches out and grabs Harry, holding him fast.

"Let me go!" Harry hits at Sirius, trying to break away from him.

"Harry! Harry!...he's gone...there's nothing you can do..."

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-Neville Pov

Blackness edges my vision.

I am Falling, falling, falling, ever so slowly.

I feel the soft fabric swoosh around me.

Screams; then, release, darkness and light.

Bright light far in the distance.

I will myself towards it, but it stays ever out of reach.

For some reason the closer I get the farther away I get.

Then suddenly, the light disappears and I appear in a dark room, far from any light.

-Pov Neville End

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-Beyond the Veil

Pain exploded in his chest as Neville lay in a crumpled heap on a cold stone floor.

He couldn't breathe, and his heart was racing.

He tried turning himself over but to no avail.

He lay there knowing that death was only a few seconds away.

His heart slowed and slowed until it was only a faint, irregular beating.

'This is it, I'm dying...' he thought as his vision blurred and slowly turned black…