Chapter Text
Harry Potter - 1997
“I was supposed to give you this.”
Neville motioned to a small, black box on the side table. He was lying in the hospital bed where he'd been telling Harry about his parents in the next ward. When Neville was stronger, he wanted to introduce Harry to them.
It was Harry’s first time at St. Mungo’s. The air smelt like lemons and something sharper. The overwhelmed healers darted from patient to patient with hurried words and restless eyes. He was trying not to stare at the vivid scars intersecting across Neville's face.
Harry hesitated, his fingers absentmindedly grazing the curse wound on his left arm. Magic had accelerated the healing, and the skin was rough where it had knit back together. His nails itched to undo that progress.
Harry shook off his sense of foreboding and got up from the uncomfortable plastic chair. The box opened automatically to Harry’s touch.
Harry looked down at a black stone. It took him a moment to recognise the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. A jagged crack from Dumbledore’s interference had replaced the wand.
Luna stirred in the bed next to Neville. Rodolphus’s curse had collapsed one of her lungs, but she would survive.
“What is it?” Harry asked Neville, whispering to not disturb Luna.
Neville shrugged, the movement making him wince. “Dumbledore told me to give it to you once we found the Horcruxes. But, well, we’re doing it all out of order now, aren’t we?”
---
At the Longbottom’s safe house, Remus and Sirius spent two days testing the stone for every curse they knew. Harry doubted Dumbledore had plotted to murder him via this gift, but let them take their parental anxiety out on the stone. Finally, they concluded it wouldn’t kill him.
The three of them were alone in the living room. The stone was cool under Harry’s careful fingers. It was lighter than he expected.
Harry closed his eyes and turned the stone three times.
When Harry opened his eyes, the parents he only knew through others’ memories stood before him. They were not quite flesh and blood, but close enough to make Harry ache to touch them.
“You’ve been so brave,” Lily said, captivated. Beside Harry, Remus made a soft sound.
“We’re so proud of you,” James said, taking in his son with reverent eyes.
Tears pricked Harry’s eyes. Rooted to the spot, he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
James looked at Sirius and Remus and his smile changed minutely, mischief tugging at the corners. “Thanks for taking care of him. I knew you could.”
“Good to see you, Prongs,” Sirius said, his voice wet and wobbly.
“Course it is, I’m ageless after all,” James replied. Sirius huffed something that wasn’t quite a laugh and James was solemn again. “You both did well. I’m proud of you all.”
“Both of them, always so dramatic.” Lily spared Sirius and Remus only a glance before returning her ardent eyes to Harry.
“Thank you,” Harry managed, nonsensical and overwhelmed.
“We’ll always be with you,” James told him. “With or without the stone.”
Harry knew the story from Remus, back when the concept of bedtime stories was still strange. The moral was simple—he couldn’t let his grief consume him. He wasn’t ready to join them yet.
“I should let you go,” he murmured reluctantly. His parents nodded, their smiles softening.
“We love you, Harry,” Lily said, her voice quiet but emphatic.
Harry turned his head to his other parents, both of whom had tears in their eyes. Harry gave them a questioning look and, after a moment’s hesitation, they nodded.
Harry focused on the otherworldly sheen to Lily’s skin and the stagnant air that James’s breathing should have displaced. He turned the stone again and his parents disappeared.
Harry moved to sit between his parents, the ones whose love kept Harry from wasting years longing for the dead. Remus hastily wiped a tear from his cheek while Sirius put an arm around Harry. They were all silent for a long time.
“Fucking Dumbledore,” Sirius said, his voice shaky.
Harry laughed softly at Sirius’s rancour. “What did he do?”
“His plan was for you to sacrifice yourself.” Sirius’s arm tightened around Harry’s shoulders. “He wanted you to have the stone to make it easier. To make you feel you were joining them, not merely killing yourself. Manipulative bastard.”
Remus squeezed Harry’s hand and Harry rested his head on his shoulder.
For a moment, Harry imagined a childhood filled with the Dursleys’ ire and never knowing there was anyone alive who loved him. How much easier would it have been to step in front of a killing curse if it meant a reunion with the only family he had?
Harry let the thought go.
Nine Years Later…
Neville Longbottom
Perched on his lab stool, Neville engaged in what had become a routine staring contest with an ornery snake. It was days like this he wished he knew Parseltongue. Then again, based on the look in the snake’s eyes, she’d have nothing friendly to say.
After a years-long search, and a lot of outside help, Voldemort’s precious vessels were all in his office. Aside from Harry and what Neville facetiously dubbed the Voldemort Vial, which Hermione was protecting.
Neville had done his research. Once he started working at the Department of Mysteries, he leveraged the many books on dark magic confiscated from Death Eaters’ homes. He knew how to destroy them. He could do it today, if he wished. But ever since Harry reluctantly told him what happened on Halloween 1981, he had a different goal in mind.
(Hermione had taken offence to Harry’s fears, ordering him to stop looking at them like they were about to hit him with a killing curse.)
Destroying the soul without damaging the vessel beyond repair was possible, in practice. Harry had seen his parents through a former Horcrux, after all.
The how was the tricky part.
Neville had tried using a Dementor, which resulted in a miserable couple of weeks for him. But Dementors couldn’t drag a soul from an object. Or distinguish between two souls in one vessel, which forced Neville to cast a hasty Patronus at an incensed Nagini.
Neville had tried injecting Nagini with Basilisk venom, then applying Phoenix tears. It didn’t expel the Horcrux.
Neville had tried dark magic. He’d cast obscure curses from the same tomes Voldemort learned to create his Horcruxes. It didn’t work.
Neville had tried healing magic. He’d studied it alongside Horcruxes for years, hoping to learn something to help his parents. But nothing in healing touched the soul.
But then, one rainy morning three days ago, Neville awoke with an idea. Anticipation had been thrumming through his bones ever since.
Swivelling his stool, he retrieved the resurrection stone. Harry had been happy to let him borrow it. He kept it locked away most of the time to resist the temptation to use it.
Its purpose was to bring back the ones you loved, but as Neville turned the stone three times, he thought of someone else.
On the third rotation, Voldemort stood before him, his eyes narrowed and furious. Neville jerked back, irrational fear flooding his chest.
“You disgusting blood traitor—” Neville cut him off with a silencing spell, grateful it worked on his half-ghost form. He took a deep breath. Voldemort had no wand. He wasn’t solid. Neville was safe.
Neville left Voldemort standing there, seething. He ran diagnostic spells on the Horcruxes, including Nagini. They were in the same state, the piece of soul within them unchanged.
A muffled voice shouting his name interrupted Neville’s tests.
Neville retrieved the mirror Sirius gave him from his pocket to see a frantic Hermione Granger. Her hair was extra frizzy with stress.
“Neville, my security alarms on Voldemort’s vial went off. The vial is empty!”
Neville glanced at the figure who was attempting to immolate him with his gaze.
Interesting.
Hermione and Harry arrived twenty minutes later. Neville spent that time running tests and avoiding eye contact with the red-eyed elephant in the room.
“Neville…” Harry said as he entered the lab, his gaze locked on Voldemort’s soul.
“Yeah, I know.”
Hermione handed him the empty vial that had contained Voldemort’s soul for the last nine years.
“I ran the diagnostic spells after we spoke,” she said, calmer than when she had called him. “There’s no trace of Voldemort’s soul.”
Neville nodded and set the vial on the table. He picked up the stone again and approached Nagini. He focused on the snake and thought about Voldemort as he turned the stone again.
Hermione gasped.
Neville turned and recoiled. Next to Voldemort was a small child-like creature with red flesh.
“Harry,” Neville said. “Can you ask the snake how she feels?”
Though magically restrained, Harry approached Nagini cautiously, making strange sibilant sounds. The snake hissed back.
“She has a lot of choice words for you,” Harry said with a glance at Neville. “She also says she feels lighter.”
Neville repeated this procedure with the remaining Horcruxes, focusing on each object as he turned the stone. One by one, flayed creatures appeared next to Voldemort, who was growing angrier.
Finally, Neville approached Harry. “Can I?”
Harry nodded. Neville met emerald green eyes and turned the stone.
Harry exhaled heavily, his shoulders dropping. “I felt... something. I might have felt it leave.”
Neville returned to the strange collection of disgusting, child-like creatures and Voldemort himself.
“I think if I destroy the stone, I’d destroy the Horcruxes, but not the vessels. But I don’t know for certain.” He looked at Harry.
Harry was quiet for a moment, thinking it through. He’d shed some of his teenage recklessness; Neville had watched it happen.
“Basilisk venom,” Harry decided. “If I start to, well, die, you can use the Phoenix tears.”
Neville nodded and retrieved a fang from one of his cupboards and a vial of Phoenix tears. He handed Hermione the vial then approached the stone. The fang was light for something so deadly and felt chalky under his fingers. He held it over the stone, hand shaking slightly.
Neville’s free hand idly traced the scar bisecting his cheek since the day Voldemort marked him as his equal. He sucked in a breath, then plunged the Basilisk fang into the stone. With a shudder and a shriek, the many spectres of Voldemort vanished.
Silence settled over the lab. To his left, the snake hissed.