Alice Longbottom said nothing. Or rather, the woman she had become was no longer capable of saying anything.
And yet she still carefully, tenderly placed a piece of bubblegum wrapper into her son's hands.
Only once she saw him accept it did she turn away, satisfied, and shuffle unsteadily back to her bed.
In that moment, Neville finally raised his head.
His throat worked in a hard, convulsive swallow. The look he cast at his three friends at Sherlock most of all was thick with embarrassment and dread.
In that moment, he had already braced himself for laughter.
Because somewhere deep inside him, having parents like these—parents who were wrong in this way was something that might seem, to others, worthy of ridicule.
But not a single person laughed.
Harry had witnessed the terror of Dementors, had looked into Voldemort's cold cruelty, and yet he had never encountered anything that left him quite this heartbroken—so hollowed out that laughter was simply impossible.
Hermione's eyes had gone red long ago. Tears clung to her thick lashes, trembling, just one breath away from spilling down her cheeks.
Sherlock, as ever, wore an unreadable expression—his grey eyes were holding some emotion no one else could name.
"Well," said Augusta Longbottom, her voice breaking the silence, "I suppose we should be getting back."
She sighed, drawing on her long green gloves one finger at a time.
She swept her gaze across the ward, and when she spoke again her tone had softened slightly: "A pleasure to meet you all—Neville's friends, and Albus and Remus, and Professor Lockhart as well."
Even at the last, she afforded Gilderoy Lockhart that much courtesy.
Then she turned to Neville, and her voice took on its familiar note of resigned exasperation: "Now then, Neville—throw that wrapper in the rubbish bin. She's given you enough of them to paper your entire bedroom by now, hasn't she?"
Neville nodded his agreement.
But the moment the door swung shut, everyone saw him slip the wrapper quietly into his pocket.
A brief silence followed.
Then Lockhart's voice rang out first: "So they weren't here to see me at all?"
"Go to sleep, Gilderoy," said Dumbledore. "You ought to rest."
The words had barely left his mouth before Lockhart keeled sideways onto his pillow and began to snore.
Dumbledore smiled faintly. "The young sleep so well."
Lupin: (visibly pained)
"Wandless magic?"
Sherlock had caught the trick of it, and turned to Dumbledore with frank curiosity.
"He had no defenses up against me, and I was standing close enough." Dumbledore made no attempt to deny it. Then he sighed. "Sherlock—it seems you haven't told the others."
Harry glanced sharply at Sherlock. So he'd known all along.
As for Hermione—she had buried her face against Sherlock's shoulder and was quietly weeping. The moment Neville and his grandmother left, the tears she'd held back could no longer be contained.
Sherlock went still for just a moment. Then he patted her gently on the back—the gesture was slightly awkward, but very tender.
He looked up at Dumbledore. "I made you a promise," he said. "I intend to keep it."
"Sir—what exactly happened? How did it come to this?"
Harry's voice was filled with a grief he couldn't hide. He stared at the spot where Neville had been standing, and felt something heavy pressing down on his chest—like a stone he couldn't shift.
Dumbledore turned to Lupin. The latter drew a slow breath and said, in a low and weighted voice:
"Neville's parents were both Aurors for the Ministry of Magic, and among the most loyal members of the Order of the Phoenix. After Voldemort's first fall, most of the Death Eaters scattered and fled—but a handful of his most devoted followers refused to accept defeat. Bellatrix Lestrange was the most dangerous of them."
He paused, steadying himself, then continued.
"She and several other Death Eaters broke into the Longbottom home and used the Cruciatus Curse to torture them for information on Voldemort's whereabouts. Under repeated and prolonged torture, Frank and Alice were driven to madness. Bellatrix and her accomplices were arrested for what they did and sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban."
"Bellatrix Lestrange did this?"
Hermione jerked her head up, eyes swollen, voice streaked with horror. "She—isn't she Sirius's—"
"Yes," Lupin said, his voice dropping further. "She was born Bellatrix Black. She later married Rodolphus Lestrange."
The ward fell into a long, heavy silence. Only the steady drone of Lockhart's snoring echoed through the empty space, grating and out of place.
The afternoon light shifted; the sun was sinking now. Slanted rectangles of gold crept across the floor, stretching each person's shadow long and thin.
"Neville never told anyone," Harry said dully. He stared at the place where his friend had stood, and realized, with a dull ache, how little he actually knew about him.
"Understandable," said Dumbledore. He crossed to the window and looked out at the darkening London sky. "Harry—it's a good thing you caught yourself just now, before you mentioned Alice's condition. Augusta would not have taken it well."
"Taken it—why would she be angry?" Hermione wiped her eyes, and looked up with a question that was clearly as much a way of breathing through the heaviness as it was genuine curiosity.
Her eyes were still red, her nose faintly pink—she had the look of someone trying to hold herself together.
"Because she has always been hard on Neville," Dumbledore said. "Family honor, to her, is everything. If she learned that Neville had kept his parents' fate from his friends, she would assume it was out of shame. In her eyes, what Frank and Alice endured in defiance of Voldemort is the pride of their family—a glory, not a secret to be hidden."
Harry and Hermione both nodded. Put that way, alongside everything they knew of how Augusta had always treated Neville, it wasn't difficult to understand.
"Is there truly no way for them to get better?" Hermione asked, her gaze drifting toward Alice's bed, a fragile note of hope in her voice.
"There is," said Lupin.
His eyes travelled to the far end of the ward, where Alice sat on the edge of her bed murmuring softly to the air.
"We simply don't know when. It could be a week. A month. A year. A decade…"
His voice faded. "But it's been more than ten years now. And they haven't improved at all."
By the time they stepped out of St Mungo's, dusk had already wrapped itself around London.
Street lamps flickered on one by one, casting amber light across the wet asphalt, where it broke apart into blurred, shifting reflections.
Harry and Hermione walked in silence, their hearts weighed down as though filled with lead.
They had come here to solve the problem of Professor Lupin's lycanthropy. Not only had that gone unresolved—they had stumbled, unexpectedly, into the wreckage of Neville's family history. Two griefs where there had been one.
Dumbledore asked Lupin to see the three children home, then left ahead of them for Hogwarts.
Before departing, he pulled Sherlock aside and told him privately that he would very likely be going in search of the next Horcrux before the month was out—and that Sherlock should prepare himself.
Sherlock nodded. He didn't say much else.
On the Underground home, the carriage was warm and softly lit. Lupin looked at Harry's furrowed brow in the amber glow and said gently:
"Don't worry too much, Harry. Being able to stay at Hogwarts for two years and teach you Defense Against the Dark Arts—that's been more than enough for me. And given how things are shaping up, I may well be more useful to the Order of the Phoenix than in a classroom."
"But—but you're the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had."
Harry bit his lip. He couldn't stand the thought of losing this quiet, capable man. He'd asked Cho Chang and other older students, and they'd said the same: even before Harry had arrived at Hogwarts, Lupin had always been the best.
"Alastor is far more formidable than I am," Lupin said, with his usual mild smile. "His style may be a little intense, and his temper rather short—but he has years of real combat experience that I could never match. You'll learn a great deal from him."
"But—"
Lupin cut him off with a light pat on the shoulder.
"No long faces," he said, his tone brightening. "Tomorrow is your birthday. When we get back, let's round up Hagrid and the others and raise a glass of Butterbeer."
"…All right."
Summer had been going for a month now.
The moment it arrived, Sirius had descended on Privet Drive with barely concealed impatience and swept Harry away to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
On Harry's very first day there, Sirius had come to him, barely able to contain his excitement, and asked whether Harry would agree to let the old Black family house serve as the Order of the Phoenix's headquarters.
It was, of course, Sirius's decision to make—the house was his ancestral home.
But ever since their conversation some weeks ago, Sirius had resolved to make everything his official: the house, his vault, all of it. It was Harry's.
So even though Sirius saw no issue with it himself, he came to ask anyway.
Harry had no objection whatsoever. It was exactly what he'd hoped for.
The result was that the old house was now transformed. The gloom and cold silence were gone. Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody, and the Kingsley Shacklebolt that Sirius had mentioned—all of them drifted in and out constantly. The sitting room always hummed with voices deep in discussion. The fire always blazed.
"Oh—Hagrid mentioned you're going to a friend's house tomorrow?"
Lupin asked, just before their stop.
"Yes," said Harry.
At the thought of it, his ears went pink.
The idea of visiting Cho Chang's home for the first time—the tangle of nerves and anticipation in his chest was enough to lift some of the heaviness from the day.
When they reached their stop, Lupin walked Sherlock and Hermione to King's Cross first.
As Hermione said goodbye, she sidled up to Harry and murmured, low enough that only he could hear:
"After you visit Cho tomorrow… does that mean you're officially together?"
"W-what? No! It's nothing like that!"
Harry's face went scarlet. He waved his hands in a flustered denial, his voice stammering.
"Well, I won't be seeing you tomorrow anyway—happy birthday in advance!"
Hermione suppressed a laugh, said the words quickly, and turned to follow Sherlock off into the street.
"Right—um. Thanks."
Harry blinked, and by the time he answered, Hermione had already gone.
He shook his head and fell into step beside Lupin, heading for Grimmauld Place.
As for Hermione—she had originally planned to go straight home. The Holmes family fireplace made it simple enough: a pinch of Floo Powder and she'd be there in seconds.
But the moment Mrs. Holmes saw her, she seized Hermione's hands with warm insistence and refused to let her go anywhere.
"You're here already—what's the rush? That room has been kept ready for you!"
She pressed a cup of hot tea into Hermione's hands, fragrant and steaming, and settled beside her on the sofa.
Once Sherlock had retreated to his room with a book, Mrs. Holmes leaned in a little closer, and said, in a casual tone that was not casual at all:
"Oh, by the way—little Luna came to visit last week. She wanted to stay over too, but her father wouldn't allow it."
"What—Luna?"
Hermione's head came up sharply. Her teacup wobbled. Hot liquid splashed over her fingers; she barely noticed. "When? I didn't hear anything about this."
"Last week, I said!" Mrs. Holmes blinked, watching the flicker of something urgent pass through Hermione's expression. A sly light danced in her eyes. "Surely Sherlock mentioned it?"
"He didn't," Hermione said. Her expression shifted into something complicated. "He never said a word."
So Gemma wasn't enough—now Luna too?
What Mrs. Holmes would never admit, of course, was that she herself had written to invite Luna.
"Oh, you know what Sherlock's like," she said, patting Hermione's hand indulgently. "He won't tell you a thing unless you ask him directly. You can hardly blame him."
She paused, then let the next words fall lightly: "Speaking of which—I don't suppose he's told you about the trip he took to the seaside with Gemma? Just the two of them?"
"What?!"
If the news about Luna had been a surprise, this was a shock. Hermione stared. "Just—just the two of them?"
"Oh dear, you really didn't know!" Mrs. Holmes pressed a hand to her mouth in performed astonishment, then sighed. "That boy. Something like this, and he can't even mention it in passing."
"A-Auntie—really, there's no reason Sherlock has to tell me these things." Hermione's cheeks had gone very red, though her voice lacked conviction. "We're just friends."
"Just friends? You are not just any friend—you're his most important one!"
Mrs. Holmes drew herself up with the authority of a woman making a point. "Never mind that. Let your auntie tell you the whole story—it went like this…"
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