There was much celebration in number twelve, Grimmauld Place when Neville returned to the house. The Marauders (both old and new) never needed an excuse to go wild of course, and Ginny was ecstatic, Mrs Weasley was beaming and even Moody allowed a brief smirk to cross his normally taciturn face.
The only ones in the house who were not in a celebratory mood were Kreacher, who muttered to himself furiously as always, and Neville himself. Though he was immensely relieved to have been cleared, the removal of one burden simply served to remind him of the extent of all his other troubles. He was still marked for death by the most powerful Dark wizard alive.
Even the fact that he was returning to Hogwarts did not cheer him as much as it normally would have. He had a mountain of homework he hadn’t even touched all summer, Hermione wasn’t around to help him, and, as Gran had reminded him as they had parted, he was entering OWL year, when his workload would become immense. Not to mention the fact that he would be entering a school and a classroom with Snape in it, a man who had already stated his intention to kill Neville. Neville could not see how he could avoid taking Potions, but he swore never to allow himself to be alone with Snape at any time.
He spent some time in the afternoon wandering about the lower floors of the house. Though the place was dark and gloomy, in the year that Lupin had spent in the house he had cleaned and tidied it as best he could, and it was perhaps not as forbidding as it otherwise might have been. In one room he found a large tapestry that appeared to be the family tree of the Blacks. He looked, but could not find Sirius’ name anywhere, though the tapestry was scorched and burned in several places. He was shocked however to see Draco Malfoy’s name on the tapestry, via his mother, Narcissa Black, and even more so to see that Narcissa’s sister was named Bellatrix, married to a Rodolphus Lestrange.
Neville knew the name Bellatrix Lestrange, for it had been one of the names he recalled Snape had given up to the Wizengamot in his testimony that Neville had seen in Dumbledore’s Pensieve. The Lestranges, he remembered, along with Barty Crouch Junior, had been responsible for the attack on Harry’s parents that had left them in St Mungo’s. Neville was horrified to think that Harry’s own guardian and godfather was related to the woman who had destroyed his parents’ minds. He wondered if Harry knew; surely he had to. The way Harry and Sirius had spoken about the Blacks, he knew they were bad, but he had not realised the extent of their crimes.
That evening, Mrs Weasley laid on a special meal in celebration of Neville’s acquittal. Several Order members were also present, including Tonks and Moody. The meal was also by way of a goodbye, as the Weasleys were returning to the Burrow the next day for the remainder of the school holidays. Neville was disappointed to hear that, as it meant that the house would be far emptier, and he had not so far been able to spend much time with Ginny. But then Harry took the opportunity to reveal the surprise he had promised Neville before he left for the Ministry. “I asked Sirius and he agreed,” he said. “We want you to come and stay with us at our home for the rest of the holidays.”
Neville was about to enthusiastically accept when Moody interrupted. “No chance,” he growled. “Neville has to stay here, where he’s best protected. I can’t allow him to go wandering off across London by himself.”
“He won’t be by himself, Mad-Eye, we’ll be with him,” said Sirius. “I promise we’ll go straight there and he won’t leave the house. My place is just as well protected as any other Order member’s. He’ll be perfectly safe. You have my word.”
“I don’t like it,” Moody replied. “What if you’re attacked en route? What if a Death Eater forces his way into your house? It’s not Fidelius Charm protected like this is.”
“I’m quite capable of defending my own home, Mad-Eye,” retorted Sirius. “You can’t keep the boy locked up in here for the rest of the summer with only Remus and Kreacher for company. Sorry, Moony,” he added in Lupin’s direction. “What I mean is, all his friends will have gone. What’s he going to do with himself for the next fortnight? I know you’re obsessed with protecting him, Mad-Eye, but you can’t imprison him just so you’ll be a hundred per cent certain he’s safe. You’ve got to let him live.”
“Look,” said Moody, “when Frank and Alice Longbottom died, I made a promise to myself that if ever...”
“I know, I know,” interrupted Sirius. “I gave you my word. We have to trust each other if the Order is going to work. But if that’s not enough, then what, do you want me to make an Unbreakable Vow?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Black.” Moody took a long sigh. “Very well, he can go. But straight there, remember, and he goes under cover of darkness in Arthur Weasley’s car. By land.”
“Best get packed up, then, shouldn’t we, lads?” said Sirius.
“Not until after dessert, I hope,” said Mrs Weasley, levitating an enormous pudding onto the table.
An hour and a half later, quite full, his trunk repacked and Trevor found once more and returned to his travelling box, Neville was ready to go. Moody insisted on going out into Grimmauld Place to check the coast was clear and stood guard as Neville, Harry and Sirius loaded their belongings into Mr Weasley’s car. Neville climbed in the back, with Harry in the passenger seat, and Sirius drove off.
Moody had nothing to worry about; the journey passed uneventfully, although Sirius did defy Moody by taking a scenic route to their destination, to show Neville some of the sights of central London. Eventually, they crossed over the river and passed through what seemed like miles of urban sprawl until they came to a narrow street flanked by long rows of two-up-two-down Victorian terraced houses. Sirius parked up on the left hand side, in front of a house with a red door. “Number seventeen, Bromley Way,” he announced. “Home sweet home.”
They unloaded the car and Sirius surreptitiously took out his wand and tapped the door handle. The latch sprang open and Sirius led them into the house.
From the outside, the house looked as tiny as the rest of those on the street. But inside the front door, Neville found that it opened out into a far larger space than its Muggle facade concealed. Although still smaller than Grimmauld Place, it felt more open, and far more homely. There were four bedrooms upstairs and room downstairs for a large kitchen, sitting room and dining room, and a small office. There was even a big, high-walled garden out the back. “Not bad, is it?” said Harry. “Come on, Neville, you can have the spare room next to mine.”
Neville was exhausted after a long, stressful day, and quickly went to bed. He slept soundly and woke to bright sunlight streaming through the window. He dressed and went downstairs to find that Harry and Sirius were already up and he had missed half the morning. “We thought you needed the rest,” said Sirius.
In the sunlight, the house seemed even more welcoming to Neville. The walls were all painted in gentle shades of red (Neville suspected Sirius was highlighting his Gryffindor credentials) and had many posters and photographs, both Muggle and wizarding, hanging from them. Rather than using more traditional equipment, Sirius had bewitched several more modern appliances to run his kitchen. Neville was reminded oddly of Hermione’s home, that he had visited before the start of his second year, though, but with a more comfortably wizarding atmosphere.
Sirius was undergoing one of his periods of temporary unemployment, so he was able to stay at home all day with Harry and Neville. His last job had been a dead end one at Magical Maintenance in the Ministry, which he’d only taken up after resigning from Hogwarts so as to keep track on what they knew about Lupin. Now that the Order, including some who worked in the Auror department, were in on the truth about Lupin, he no longer needed to worry about that, and so had quit. Unfortunately he had as yet no idea what his next career was going to be.
He insisted on giving Neville a quick guided tour of the house, showing him every room and every nook and cranny. He was very proud of the home he had created. “I bought this place when I was seventeen, as soon as I came of age,” he told Neville. “I’d walked out of Grimmauld Place when I was sixteen and went to live with Harry’s grandparents. But then an uncle of mine left me some money in his will and I was able to buy this. It was virtually an empty shell when I moved in; the previous wizarding family who lived here had died out. It’s taken me years to get it how I wanted.”
They looked into Harry’s bedroom, which was a complete mess, with clothes and books and bits of parchment and other assorted junk strewn across the floor. The walls were covered in Quidditch posters. Neville noticed he still had a wallchart up from the Quidditch World Cup the previous year.
Outside on the landing, Neville noticed a trapdoor in the ceiling immediately above him. “What’s up there?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s just the attic,” said Sirius. “Here, I’ll show you.” He pointed his wand at the trapdoor, which sprang open. A ladder descended through the hole. Sirius climbed up, and Neville and Harry followed him.
It was pitch black in the attic, and Sirius lit his wand to reveal a small space piled high with all manner of junk and discarded items. “Anything we don’t need or want anymore gets shoved up here,” he said. “Most of it is from Grimmauld Place, actually. When my parents died, I went round to the place and cleared it out of virtually everything, so I’d never have to set foot in it again. Funny how things work out. Anyway, half the stuff I sold, and the rest ended up here.”
He picked up a cardboard box and absently picked through it, finding a cracked dinner plate, a necklace with half the beads missing, a dirty old locket and a broken watch that seemed beyond repair. He chucked them back on the pile. “This is all that’s left of my parents' legacy. Here gathering dust amid a heap of rubbish. Fitting in a way, isn’t it?” Sirius smiled mirthlessly.
They went downstairs and finished up in the sitting room. There hanging above the mantelpiece, Neville saw that two photographs were given pride of place. One of them was of the original Marauders; four boys standing arm in arm and grinning madly. The other was a large group photo of a motley array of people. Neville instantly recognised Hagrid towering over everybody else at the back, and Dumbledore standing at the front in the centre next to Moody.
“Ah, I thought you’d be interested in that,” said Sirius. “I got a copy of that from Moody. That’s the original Order of the Phoenix, from back in the day. Look, there I am, at the back with Moony. And see who’s down the front here.”
Sirius pointed to a couple on the front row, and Neville stifled a cry of shock. Standing with their arms around each other and beaming happily were his parents, looking just as they did when their forms appeared out of Voldemort’s wand two months earlier. They were standing tall and proudly, honoured to be a part of this august group. “Just like them to be at the front,” said Sirius. “Never found them hanging back, your parents. Always first in and all in, or not at all. I’m sorry I didn’t know them better.” Neville said nothing, but just stared at his parents and thought about how unlike them he was.
Sirius scanned the rest of the photograph. “God, I forgot how many of these people died. Molly’s brothers there; they were as fierce fighters as your parents. Benjy Fenwick, he looked out for me when I was new. Oh boy, there’s Peter.” Standing alone to one side of the photograph, with an eager grin on his rat-like face, was Peter Pettigrew.
“I see he’s still in that photo,” said Neville, pointing to the one of the Marauders. “You didn’t think about removing him?”
“No, I couldn’t do that,” said Sirius. “The Marauders were always four, nothing can change that. That is Peter as he was, our friend. The war changed him; it’s easy to see that now. It changed all of us, to be honest. You can’t live through something like that and not change.”
Neville was surprised to hear Sirius to talk almost pityingly about a man he had once been prepared to kill. Sirius must have noticed Neville’s reaction, because he added, “You didn’t know him, Neville. He was once a good person. He was in trouble at school far less than James and I were. I can hate what he became, but I can’t forget what he was. Nobody is born evil, not even Voldemort, I reckon. They make the wrong choices, like Peter did, or they have it drummed into them at an early age, like my family. Did I ever tell you about my brother?”
“No,” replied Neville. He didn’t even know Sirius had a brother.
“He was a year younger than me and, like the rest of our family, he had the pure-blood ideology forced down his throat from day one. We all had to be taught that Muggles and Muggle-borns were scum, and that the pure-bloods were the rightful rulers of wizarding society. The thing is, Regulus was a good kid. I think he could have been a decent man. But he was a good little mama’s boy and dutifully did everything our parents wanted. So he became a proud Slytherin and parroted the pure-blood line like the rest of them. Straight out of school, he joined the Death Eaters. My parents must have been so proud.”
Sirius shook his head sadly. “He didn’t know what he was signing up for. He wasn’t into murder and torture, he just wanted to make Mummy and Daddy happy. Within a year or two, so I heard, he’d got cold feet, tried to pull out, and Voldemort had him murdered. No one’s allowed to just walk away from the Death Eaters.”
He gave a rueful sigh. “I had a saying about my parents when I was younger. Everything was Black and White to them, and the Blacker the better. A bad pun, sure, but I was only a kid. And it was true. That was the way they saw the world. They couldn’t have been more wrong. If your run-in with the Ministry of Magic has taught you anything, Neville, it should be that right and wrong, good and bad, are often found in places where you won’t expect them. There’s nothing simple about the world we live in.”
Neville was left to ponder those words as Sirius turned back to the photo of the Order, once more reminiscing. “Sturgis Podmore, he’s still around. Dumbledore’s brother, I wonder what became of him?” he muttered. He then stopped as his finger reached a young couple standing on the right hand side of the picture. “Ah, there they are, of course,” he said in a wistful tone.
Neville followed the line of his finger and recognised the couple immediately, though he had never seen them before. The man with his unkempt dark hair and glasses, and with an older and wiser face than that of the boy in the photograph opposite. The woman with long flame-red hair, bright green eyes and a warm smile. “You look just like him,” Neville said to Harry, “but you’ve got her eyes.”
Harry leaned in closer to see the images of his parents. “Yeah, I know,” he said quietly. He stared at the picture in silence for a long time, and Neville didn’t know quite what to do or say.
It was Sirius who finally broke the silence. “Did Harry tell you what happened?” he asked.
“I, er, I know,” said Neville uncomfortably. “I found out. From Dumbledore,” he offered by way of explanation. He was worried that Sirius and Harry would be mad, but Sirius simply nodded and Harry gave him a weak smile.
“My best friend,” said Sirius. “The day it happened my world nearly ended. Remus was already in Azkaban and Peter was supposedly dead. I had no one left. But there was Harry. Someone had to take care of him, and I think it’s what James would have wanted.”
“You don’t have any other family of your own, then?” Neville asked Harry.
“No, not that I know of,” Harry answered. “I think my mum had a Muggle sister, but I’ve never met her.”
“I was happy to adopt Harry,” said Sirius. “I think we needed each other, in our own ways. It’s been my honour to raise James and Lily’s son.” He hugged Harry, who said nothing, but his eyes beamed with pride. Sirius took one last look at the photograph. “The war was over,” he added bitterly. “They were just after information on Voldemort. I’ve never understood why they chose James and Lily to target.”
“Your own relative,” Neville blurted out. Seeing Sirius and Harry’s shocked reaction, he stammered, “I-I saw your family tree.”
“Oh,” said Sirius, nodding. “Yes, my cousin Bellatrix. The Blackest of the Blacks, and that’s saying something. There’s true evil for you. One of three sisters, you know. Narcissa married Lucius Malfoy, but Andromeda married a Muggle-born and is Tonks’ mother. The psychotic, the noble pure-blood and the rebel. One family. Not so Black and White, eh?”
Neville looked back at the photograph, at the Potters and his parents, and all those smiling faces of people who had died. “It’s going to happen again, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “The war, the deaths, the suffering?”
“I’m afraid it probably is, Neville,” replied Sirius gravely. “It probably is.”
Neville Longbottom and the Order of the Phoenix by Sonorus
Chapter Notes: In which Neville goes to stay at Sirius and Harry’s own home.* * *