Chapter Text
An old man appeared out of nowhere in the village square just after midnight on Halloween. He wore a long purple cloak, and had a long silver beard, so long that he had tucked it into his belt. The village was small and quaint, the cottages radiating out from the small church. There was a pub behind him, but it looked empty, its windows dark.
The man looked up at the sky through his half-moon spectacles and grimaced. Not taking his eyes from the sky, he took a stick from his pocket, and waved it like a magic wand. Three silver somethings burst from the tip and flew away in different directions.
The old man seemed to hesitate for a moment. He did not look away from the strange constellation in the sky, the thing that had brought him here. It was green, and washed the village with sickly green light. It was just beginning to fade, but the flickering lights still made the shape of the skull and the snake. They hovered above the manor house at the top of the hill.
Apparently deciding that he could wait no longer, the old man set off up the hill, and as he did so, a severe looking woman appeared out of nowhere beside him with a small pop, and matched his pace. She too wore a cloak, an emerald green one. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun, with wisps falling around her face, as though she had tied it back in a hurry.
“Do we know? Anything?” she asked the man, in a tense voice with a Scottish lilt.
“Not yet. The Mark appeared a few minutes ago and I was alerted immediately. I presume that the Ministry also knows, but I have sent word to Alastor, just in case.”
“Is it… him?”
“We must presume so”
The woman nodded, and the two continued up the hill, quickening their pace.
At the top of the hill, a man was tying a rope to a fence. The man was huge. He was at least twice as tall as a normal man, and at least 5 times as wide. Long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face.
“Professor Dumbledore sir. Professor McGonagall” the man greeted them in a deep growl of a voice.
“Hagrid,” the old man returned the greeting with a nod, but did not slow his pace. The huge man joined them. They were almost at the manor house now, the garden gate in sight, a green arch in the high wall, covered in roses. In the sun it probably looked pretty and inviting, but in the sickly green light from the shape above, it looked eerie and foreboding.
“I brought thestrals, sir, three of ‘em. Thought they’d be good for a quick getaway.”
“Good thinking, Hagrid,” the man Dumbledore said.
They were at the gate now. Dumbledore waved his wand, and the gate burst open.
The three of them ran through (Hagrid had a little trouble, with his height and girth). On the grass in front of them, in the middle of the perfectly manicured lawn, was a large circle of blackened earth, and in the centre of the patch lay a woman, and a small child wrapped in a blanket, crying. On the far edge lay another woman, arms outstretched as though reaching for the crying child. Both women lay perfectly still. Only the crying child moved, straining against his blanket.
The garden smelled of smoke and ozone instead of roses and jasmine.
“Good Lord,” McGonagall muttered, her hand at her mouth, and moved as if to go towards the child, but Dumbledore reached out his arm to stop her.
“Check the house,” Dumbledore instructed, and the other two nodded and headed up the curved path towards the front door. “Be careful, they may still be here.” At this, Hagrid reached into his huge leather jacket and removed a pink umbrella, which he brandished threateningly.
Dumbledore moved slowly to the edge of the burned patch. He waved his wand and muttered something under his breath, and moved slowly around the circumference, pausing here and there to mutter and frown. Halfway around, he reached the woman. She had short, greying hair, and wore a sensible-looking cardigan over her robes. She had burn marks on her left side, and her left foot was pointing out at an unnatural angle. Dumbledore knelt beside her, touched her unburned shoulder, then waved his wand over her.
In an instant the woman’s eyes were open, and she tried to sit up. Dumbledore placed his hand back on her shoulder to try and keep her still, but the woman batted it away, turning and writhing, looking over at the woman and child in the centre of the circle. She tried to get to them, but cried out when she tried to move her injured leg.
Dumbledore placed his hand on her shoulder once more.
“Augusta,” he whispered “Augusta what happened?”
“It was him,” Augusta croaked, her voice damaged from breathing in the smoke.
Dumbledore helped her to sit up, and she leaned her good arm on his. “Him, and Bellatrix Lestrange and- oh, Rodolphus or Rabastian, whichever one it was that she married, I can never tell those two dolts apart.”
“Have they gone?”
“He has, I don’t know about the other two, I was knocked out by-“ She tried to turn around, craning to look at the woman and child in the middle of the burned grass.
“Frank?” Dumbledore asked quietly. “Auberon?”
Augusta slowly shook her head, and buried her face in her hands, shaking with the effort to not cry. Dumbledore patted her arm gently.
“Have you your wand?” he asked her, and she pointed behind her.
“I put out the fire,” she muttered. Her wand was where her outstretched hand had been, and Dumbledore retrieved it for her. She stowed it safely away in the sleeve of her cardigan.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “I’m going to check on them.”
He stood and, slowly, with much trepidation, stepped onto the burned grass. He kept his wand out in front of him, waving it and muttering as he went.
When he reached the centre, he crouched down beside the woman. Her eyes stared back at him, sightless and unseeing. Dumbledore sighed, and reached out and gently closed them, before standing and removing his cloak and laying it over her. He heard Augusta sob quietly behind him.
Finally, Dumbledore turned his attention to the crying child. He waved his wand over him, and, apparently satisfied, knelt down beside him. Dumbledore carefully unwrapped the blanket, which was marked by soot and singed in places. The boy moved his arms around and kicked his legs. His face was red from crying, and his cheeks were wet, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. Dumbledore touched the boy’s cheek. The boy seemed soothed by Dumbledore’s presence, and his crying eased, as he looked up at the old man curiously. Dumbledore picked him up, and the boy quietened down.
Holding the boy in one arm, Dumbledore examined the boy’s only apparent injury; a cut on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. Dumbledore waved his wand over it and the blood around it was wiped away. It appeared to be clean, but Dumbledore waved his wand over it a little more.
As he took the boy back across the burned patch towards Augusta, shouts from the gate alerted him to the arrival of more reinforcements. Most of the new arrivals, 5 or 6 of them ran straight up the garden path towards the house, but one man, with a wooden leg and heavily scarred face, waved to Dumbledore and limped over to him.
“Augusta is injured” Dumbledore called out, standing beside her.
The limping man called out to one of his companions, a plump medi-wizard in green robes, who doubled back and went to attend to the injured woman.
Dumbledore and the limping man went over to the path, several feet away from Augusta and the medic. Dumbledore bounced the child in his arms gently, and the boy now appeared to be dozing off to sleep on his shoulder.
The scarred man nodded to the figure of the cloak-covered woman in the centre of the burned grass. “Is that…?”
“Alice” Dumbledore confirmed.
The scarred man shook his head dolefully.
McGonagall and Hagrid came out of the house and made their way down the path. The two men turned to them in eager anticipation of an update from inside. Hagrid was wiping the copious tears from his face into his beard and hair. McGonagall had an angry-looking scratch across her left cheek.
“Frank and Auberon are dead, Dumbledore,” McGonagall said “they’re in the drawing room.” We got Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange though.” She turned to the scarred man. “They’re tied up in the dining room. Your crew are dealing with them now.”
“Straight to Azkaban with them,” the scarred man growled. “Were there any more of them?”
“None that we saw,” McGonagall confirmed.
The medic led Augusta over to them. She was a little unsteady on her feet, and the burns on her arm and cheek were covered in a green ointment. Dumbledore waved his wand and a lawn chair appeared in the grass beside them, which the medic helped her into, before turning his attention towards McGonagall. McGonagall tried to resist his attentions, insisting that she was fine, but a raised eyebrow from the scarred man silenced her fairly quickly.
Once Augusta was settled, she held out her arms for the child, and Dumbledore gently lowered the boy into her arms. The cut on his head stood out horribly in the green light from above.
“What’s that from?” the medic whispered.
“Augusta, is that where…?” Dumbledore asked, and Augusta shrugged and shook her head.
“We were trying to flee, but he caught us. Threw me to the side, and went for Alice. She tried to defend herself, but it was no use. He killed her. And then turned his wand on Neville. I tried to stop him, I did, but… and then he was gone, and the lawn was on fire.”
“When you say that he was gone, Augusta, do you mean he disapparated?” Dumbledore asked.
“No, I mean… there was an explosion of some sort. And he, well, for lack of a better word, he screamed. It was the most awful sound. And there was nothing but fire and smoke. I could hear Neville crying, and I managed to put the fire out, but I think the smoke got to me, and then…” Augusta’s voice trailed off, and the others stood around in shocked silence, other than Hagrid, who sobbed loudly into a handkerchief.
“The curse rebounded.” Dumbledore said finally. “Bounced off Neville like a mirror, and turned on its caster.”
“So, well does that mean…?” McGonagall whispered, “Does that mean he’s really gone?”
Dumbledore nodded.
“For good?” Augusta added.
“As for that, only time will tell.” Dumbledore replied cryptically.
The adults all stared down at the sleeping child in Augusta’s arms.
“Never heard of it happening before” the scarred man muttered. “Nobody ever survived the killing curse. Can’t be done. How’s a child manage it? A wandless, defenceless child?”
“Clearly he isn’t as defenceless as he looks!” the medic chuckled.
“Ted, enough” McGonagall admonished, and the medic fell silent once more, as though scolded by a strict teacher.
“Are you telling me,” the scarred man asked, “that this boy killed You-Know-Who?”
McGonagall shook her head. “After all the things he’s done, after all of the people he’s killed… he couldn’t kill one little boy? It’s just astounding… of all the things to stop him… but how in heaven did Neville survive?”
“We can only guess,” Dumbledore answered gravely. “We may never know.”
“So that cut” Ted said, motioning again to the lightning bolt on Neville’s forehead, “is that where-“
“Yes.”
“Can you get rid of it?” Augusta asked, looking frantically from Dumbledore to the medic.
Ted pulled a face. “Curse wounds like that… “
Moody barked a laugh and pointed to his own scarred face. “Some curse scars never heal. Boy got lucky if you ask me” and the others silently agreed.
“Well, I say this calls for a stiff drink.” McGonagall waved her wand, and little glasses of whiskey appeared in the air, one in front of each of them. McGonagall took hers and raised it slightly. The others did the same.
“To Frank, Alice and Auberon Longbottom” Augusta said.
“And to Neville Longbottom,” Dumbledore added. “The boy who lived.”