Chapter Text
Neville pushed aside his desk, watching Harry and the masked Death Eater struggle against one another, before shouting: "Expelliarmus!”
Unfortunately, the Death Eater turned, pulling Harry into the direct line of fire. Then, Harry's wand flew out of his hand, disappearing toward the entrance of the hall.
Terrified, as Neville watched the Death Eater begin to arm his wand in an offensive stance, he quickly came to his feet and lunged his entire weight towards the Death Eater.
“Go, Harry!” Neville shouted, as he pushed Harry out of the way and toppled both himself and the Death Eater to the ground — this time effectively flinging the Death Eater’s wand elsewhere.
Soon enough, however, both Neville and the Death Eater scrambled off the floor and ran for the discarded wand. Unable to focus on anything else but capturing the Death Eater’s wand, Neville failed to arm himself.
Planning to snap the Death Eater’s wand, Neville scanned the vicinity in a frenzy, tenaciously patting his hands against the floor for the long stick of wood.
After a moment, his throat began closing in with anxiety. Neville realized he couldn’t find the wand — and neither could he find the Death Eater who’d just been right beside him. Hearing Harry and the others fighting similar battles, Neville’s hand flew to his wand on his side, ready to start shooting off spells the same as they had been.
But before Neville could use any, or even perform a simple tracking spell, he watched a thin jet of blue light charge towards him, enveloping his eyesight with the bright spell.
“Expulso!” The voice snarled nastily, the Death Eater appearing from behind the light.
Neville felt the spell hit the floor in front of him, before it blew upwards into the center of his chest with a shock, knocking all the air out of his lungs as he flew backwards.
The force of the spell pushed Neville far, until he hit a tall, standing case. Several shards of glass quickly dug into his back, the rest of what he’d crashed into bursting apart at his feet.
Smooth, yellow particles erupted from the destroyed cabinet quickly after, floating around his body.
Horrorstruck, Neville heaved, leaning against the wall and feeling the long glass shards pierce further into him. He let out a pained wet cough, feeling a familiar sludge-like substance dribble from his lips.
“Neville!” Hermione yelled from a distance, voice bordering on a scream. Neville tried to say something, anything , but he watched her quickly become overthrown by her opponent, Hermione’s back getting closer and closer to a row of grandfather clocks.
Suddenly, the glass-fronted cabinet he’d thoroughly destroyed sprang up back against the wall, taking him with it, Neville standing perfectly fine until it dissolved to the floor once more, then back up against the wall, then—
Tied to whatever magic had been manipulating the glass cabinet, Neville felt several waves of tumultuous pain hurtle at him, never ending as his eyes watered and burned.
Continuously, however, beautiful yellow dust floated around, like Hagrid’s fairies had been fluttering about his line of sight and leaving sprinkles of dust in their wake.
But it was still another eternity of glass tearing at his flesh alongside the floating yellow particles entering his lungs as he breathed, and after several painful moments, Neville felt the dust suffocate him like pollen.
Then, a twisting feeling rose from his stomach up to his chest. It felt like he had been side-along apparating with his grandmother; that dizzy, whole-body feeling that made you sick, bordering on feverish.
After a nauseatingly long moment — one where his body practically turned itself inside out, conscious spinning ‘round and ‘round the room — Neville felt his body grow cold, still, his eyesight gone dark, and his body far, far away from him.
No semblance of pain tore at his body, not anymore, and his breath seemed imperceptible— as if he hadn’t been breathing at all. The noise of battle and broken glass quickly fell away from him, leaving his line of hearing as quickly as he’d heard the others rattling spells off to defend themselves.
Soon Neville was empty, feeling numb instead of terrified, weightless instead of stressed. He dissolved into the feeling, a pressure pressing against his body.
However, the twisting feeling returned, migrating from his stomach up and down his body, until it placed itself permanently in his head. Neville’s eyes were sore, as if he had been rolling them over and over, his neck following.
As quickly as the sounds of spells being casted left him, new sounds entered his ears— the thin boiling of a cauldron, soft clicks of potion bottles being set near each other, the quiet bristling of a wind's call through an open window.
Then, his smell followed: the smoking smell of dittany, mint sprigs, fresh wiggentree bark…
Wiggenweld potion ingredients.
How had he not noticed before? It was Madam Pomfrey’s familiar domain all around him.
Feeling comfortable — and more importantly, safe — when Neville felt a brief ray of light spill over his face and his body, his eyes fluttered open in suit.
Quickly, he sprung to his feet, eager to find Harry and the others — hopefully not, but perhaps in the infirmary themselves, or simply chatting to Madam Pomfrey after visiting him.
However, when Neville took a better look around — quietly, of course, Madam Pomfrey would make the strictest show in Merlin's universe to chain him to the bed once more — he found himself alone.
Neville’s heart drew cold, his breath stopping.
What had happened to the rest of them, after he’d fainted from that Expulso?
Before any of Neville’s anxieties could be sated or answered, a quick swish of the bedside curtains revealed Madam Pomfrey — who, oddly, looked younger than the last time Neville had seen her.
Neville shook his head. There were more important things to think about than Madam Pomfrey’s new beauty potions.
“Madam Pomfrey, where’s Harry? Hermione? Is everyone alright?”
“Excuse me, young man. I expect you to be back in that bed immediately.” She said sharply, her wrist twisting a red coloured glass bottle, as if to be mixing the ingredients.
Neville paled, and scrambled back to the infirmary cot in resignation. There was no good end to setting off Madam Pomfrey’s anger, and he could ask questions after she’d finished treatment.
She stepped closer to him, gesturing for him to turn around— his back, Neville presumed, which he’d realized was without a shirt, merely bandaged — and he did as she asked.
After unwrapping the bandages curled under his arm around his back, her fingers grazed his open wounds, covered in the sticky potion she’d been making and mixing earlier. Neville bit back a hiss.
Odd, Neville thought, as he’d assumed Madam Pomfrey would’ve simply fed him the Wigglewend potion in his sleep — which would have done up his simple cut wounds without her needing to get hands on.
“Now, young man, who is this… Harry, you’re talking about?”
Neville knit his brows together. “Madam Pomfrey, what are you talking about?”
She knew these things, so why was she asking him? Harry had attended Hogwarts for several years at this point, and he was definitely no stranger to the infirmary.
Unless…
Neville’s feet quickly found themselves on the floor, hastily distancing himself from Madam Pomfrey — or whoever had been Polyjuiced as Madam Pomfrey.
Neville realized he had zero way of knowing if this was actually Madam Pomfrey — if this was actually Hogwarts. After he fainted, Harry and the others could’ve been captured, or they could’ve escaped, and he was being held hostage.
His hands went to his waist for his wand, but he came up empty. Neville cursed under his breath for his stupidity— he’d dropped his wand when he hit the glass cabinet.
Trembling, his hands grasped around an empty potions bottle, and in a moment of clarityc he remembered his grandmother’s regular cautions and teachings, and he bashed the end of the bottle against the sharp edge of the counter, leaving the bottle sharp and painful.
“Who are you?! Where have you taken Harry?” Neville demanded, willing his voice not to tremble so, stepping back further as — who Neville presumed to be — the Polyjuiced Death Eater edged closer to him, hands held up in a cautionary stance.
“Young man, what in Merlin’s good name are you doing?! Put down that bottle immediately!” The Death Eater said, refusing to give up their identity.
Neville swallowed his nerves, and suddenly, as he saw the Death Eater pull their wand from their apron and begin to cast a spell, he held the bottle to his throat.
“Y— you’ll never get anything out of me! I’ll never tell you where Harry is, no, not never!“ Neville shouted, voice warbling. His breath came heavy, his head light and anxious.
The Death Eater’s eyes grew wide, wand ready to cast a spell— when the infirmary doors burst open.
In came a man Neville hadn’t seen since he’d been banned by Minister Fudge, replaced subsequently by Umbridge.
“Stupefy!” The voice grumbled out, a loud and thunderous clap of magic hitting Neville straight in the chest, the same place he’d been Expulso’d.
Darkness befell Nevilles vision quickly, creeping into the edges of his vision like the yellow dust from what felt like an eternity ago, and Neville’s body dropped cold and numb on the infirmary floor.
“What happened here, Poppy?” The man said, exasperated. His features fell into a deep dismay, blue eyes blinking rapidly from Neville knocked out on the floor, to Poppy Pomfrey’s shocked figure.
“I— the boy woke, rambling nonsense about a - a Harry and Hermione. I applied the Wiggenweld potion directly on his wounds, as they kept opening up, and as I began to ask about this Harry, he jumped and began threatening me with that bottle he’d broken,” Poppy Pomfrey said, pointing to the discarded glass bottle on the floor.
“When I reached for my wand, he raised the glass to his neck. He said I would “never get anything” out of him. He seemed positively determined to keep this… Harry's location secret, even so far as to die instead of telling me.”
Albus Dumbledore drew a thin, thin breath, inspecting the scene laid out before him carefully.
“He knew my name, Albus.”
“…yes, Poppy. That seems to be a rather glaring problem.” Albus said under his breath, his hand reaching up to his chin. “I believe it would be appropriate to assume that our guest,” he gestured to Neville, “may perhaps not exactly be from here.”
“The yellow dust… time turner powder?”
“Time turner powder indeed.”
“But where would he — much less a boy this age — gather enough powder to make a full length trip such as this one?”
“That, Poppy,” Albus said, silently lifting Neville’s lifeless body onto a cot,”we have to find out.”
“Rennervate!”