DISCLAIMER: Okay, I don't own any of Harry Potter... I'm just a little harmless author...
Revenge. That’s all he was seeking for, nothing else. Not fame, glory, or anything that the people of the Wizarding World were promising for her death. It was all for revenge, revenge for his parents.
His whole life had been crippled due to her. Everything could’ve been different, but no, she ruined it all. His parents had been part of the best, the top of the top, the elite of the elite, and then they were reduced to shattered memories. He was known as weak, the stupidest of the stupid, the frailest of the frail, and the nicest of the nice. Weakling, they would think. He was a person that would never help the Wizarding World during times like these. But they were wrong.
Could a weakling do a task that the whole magical world thought of as impossible? Could a weakling avenge the torture his parents had gone through? He was no weakling. He was a man who had gone through too much.
He was Neville.
But how could he do something as horrible as murder? The cryptic word had slipped out of his mouth, yearning for years to get out. The urge to point his wand and push out the previously dormant hate came from his heart, the heart that usually told him to stay kind and soft. His lips moved with the energy that radiated from his soul. His voice came from deep inside his stomach. Images of his parents had flooded his mind, reminding him of what he had to do. Her eyes had flashed with fear. He was motivated with love. She, weak from the war and the absence of love, crumbled on the floor. Green flash. Bellatrix Black was dead.
She wouldn’t kill again. She wouldn’t crush any more lives; with the absolute finality of death. She wouldn’t dissolve any more hopes, dreams, or souls that lingered in any human. She wouldn’t tear apart families, like she did with his. She simply wasn’t there.
“Neville, dinner!” his grandmother called out. Just like old times, except he was so different. Today was different. The future was going to be different. But what could be the future would always be combined with the comfort of the past, and that was good. Still, nothing felt right.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied. Not really. He was longing for a taste of his Gran’s home cooking: the reminder of peace and the innocence that he used to posses. But he couldn’t face her. He couldn’t face anyone.
“Are you sure?” came her voice, creeping up with worry.
“Yes, Gran, I’m sure.” Another lie. They were just flowing out of his mouth today. What was with him?
He had changed after that drastic incident, but for the better or for the worse? Those words that he spoke, people said, were for strong people; people who had enough hate in them to utter those words. He didn’t think he was filled with cruelty; instead, filled with love for his parents. Love that he believed would help him, mentally. Physically, he was already hurt when he saw her. Full of scrapes and bruises, he walked with a limp. And then he exerted all his energy on those two words. Maybe that’s why it hurt so much. Maybe.
Maybe if he didn’t get to hurt her the first time he fought her, she wouldn’t have killed his parents. Maybe if he didn’t get hurt from fighting her, he could’ve saved his parents. Maybe, if he decided not to go help Harry, Hermione, and Ron, none of this would’ve happened. Maybe this was all a dream.
But it wasn’t, and he knew that. It was reality, and it was brutal. Killing and wounding everything he knew, he wanted it to be over. Why couldn’t it be peaceful, like it was when he was young? Why did it have to be gruesome: murder everyday, gloominess floating in the air, and rampant crying? But what was he saying? He was being a hypocrite: he had committed murder himself.
Yet, that was for good. Did anyone get hurt because of that? Only the evil side; was any good wizard hurt? It was all for good. Good for him because of revenge; good for wizarding folk because an evil source was gone. But his conscience was right: he had committed murder.
He was now a changed man. A man who had faced death, murder, and the slaughter of a soul. He had crossed the line between the innocent and the guilty: the ones who were blocked from the bloodshed, and the ones who had blood drip down their fingers. Not that he did feel her blood, but he had destroyed her in a gruesome way: the same way she had almost killed his parents. Twisted and twitchy her body became, along with weak and on the bridge to insanity. Then, his green flash.
But it was over. He should have swallowed and digested the facts. His parents were dead. She was dead. His war was over. She was no longer his enemy. She was gone.
No matter what, the past wouldn’t change. She couldn’t spring into life and kill him. His parents couldn’t awaken from death and hug him. He couldn’t expect all his actions he had done to be erased.
But his future could. He could decide to smile and live life in the way he had always dreamed. He could stay in his room and die in his sorrow. He could get out back on the battlefield and help finish the war. He could stay in his house, protected, but with nothing to do.
So he had to keep on living. In a new way. He had to stop moaning and live life. Because it was all over and there was no reason for him to mope. There was no use for a wizard who wouldn’t do anything. One day he could lose his magic, and dive deeper into distress. He had to change. And start life new. And reincarnate into the old Neville.
“Gran,” he whispered as he stumbled into the kitchen, “can I have some dinner?”
A/N: Special thanks to AlexisTaylor for being a wonderful beta!