Findings, Part 2
An abandoned house, Unknown
25th September 2003
Supper passes crawlingly slowly, to me, but Neville and Luna seem to enjoy it immensely. Neville doesn’t seem to know how to be romantic (Neither do I!), but Luna keeps sharing bits of her bread and soup with him, and she even offers to clean his bowl when he’s finished.
His flustered countenance is what actually lifts my mood a little bit, as supper is winding down. I am too occupied with teasing him – and sometimes Luna as well – to brood about anything, and relish in the relief it causes.
Neville and Luna help me clear up yet another section of the rubble, after we’re done with repacking the heating and dining tools and reshouldering our packs, both to add to our little fortification and to look for any other hidden treasures that might hint at how things went awry here. (Well, I wanted to leave the packs, with some magical protection in place, but Luna reasoned reasonably that we might have to vacate the premises quickly, or somebody might be by and steal this only means of our survival, so the packs must be with their respective owners at all times.)
We uncover a swatch of coarsely woven fabric similar to the shrunken rug stored in my pocket under this latest pile, bigger than the three before combined and resting right under a very, very big and rugged hole on the wall. So maybe there are other bits under other piles? That would explain why I was so tired after casting that last Reparo: I was trying to summon this piece from under the humongous heap of rubble it has so recently been hidden under!
Neville reminds us that we still need a good amount of magic to maintain our warmth and protect us along the way back to the lodge, as I immediately move to the next pile after attempting to restore our finding. However, Luna insists that we search longer. “A blue angel is in need of us,” she maintains.
“This blue angel, you mean?” Neville jokes, throwing a mirthful glance at me. “He does seem in need of us. His hair, more specifically. Maybe his stubbornness, as well, and his poor situation under the tirany of Missus Tongs, and his awesome disability to stop before he blacks out….”
I throw him a mock glare and a stuck-out tongue. It’s so refreshing and nice, encountering a boulder and cheeky Neville, but it doesn’t mean that it could be a hassle sometimes, like now.
To be honest, though, it’s only a hassle to my pride, because I can’t very well object to those point he’s making, even though they’re made in jest, because they’re all true.
Oh. Well.
Exasperated with myself, with him, with Luna, with the current situation, and with my pending plans and obligations, I wave at my two companions and stalk away towards the back of the house, where the collapsed stairs lie. “Got it,” I drawl, meanwhile. “I do need those. Happy? – Well, now, I’m kinda tired, yes, and kinda remember we took a rather long trek here from Luna’s ‘doorway’. So how ‘bout we camp here for the night? Before that, though, let’s check the whole building so we know what’s where and what could be dangerous. Nev, you were an Auror; got any helpful spell to find whoever Luna’s been talking about? And for the record, I’m sure it’s not me, so please don’t arrest me, Mister Auror.”
Laughing, Neville responds to my return with a mild stinging hex to my left buttock, one that I don’t dodge timely enough. Then, in an abruptly serious tone, he sighs and confesses, “I never thought I could even put up a smile, in an environment like this. We visited a few places that the Death Eaters ransacked, you know, while I was in the Auror Academy. It’s… rather like this. It’s worse when the target was a magical person, family or community. We’ve got more power than the Muggles, so our emotions leave stronger imprints in places we feel those the most. Deaths would just make those imprints of emotions permanent, in a way, and those victims didn’t die peacefully.”
Giving him a similar sigh as my only response, I retrace my steps and loop my non-wand-bearing hand round his shoulders. It’s Luna who speaks up, instead, though not quite in words that I would use to lift his spirit back up.
“Children cleanse places and people. The Humpdingers daren’t hurt them, and they can get rid of the Humdingers, though they can still fall prey to these wily little beasts. We need to find one to help us. Harry alone is not enough.”
“I’m not a child, you know,” I smile at her behind Neville, who is beginning to mutter spells and swipe at thin air with his wand. “I’m sure twenty-three-year-olds aren’t categorised as ‘children’ in all the known communities.”
“But you said you knew nothing about the blue angels. So this one community is not known, isn’t it?” she retorts while returning my smile, with a hint of cautiousness in her playful banter that makes me feel guiltier about distancing myself from her.
Before I can confront her about how she knew – or deduced – my deepest secret, though, to hopefully clear the air between us and return us to our former bar-nothing friendship, Neville whirls round and declares with a hint of exasperation in his voice, “There’s no living being on this level other than the three of us; not even plants or little insects. No animate turned inanimate, and no animate turned stasis either. It’s creepy.”
I fight to smother an inappropriate laughter on the last of his report. If anybody still doubted Neville’s place in Gryffindor, this would help clinch it: Only a Gryffindor would say a place is creepy while he’s still in it with such exasperation instead of fear.
Well, but we’re still here, and we don’t have much time to explore because of various reasons, so, “How could people put living beings in stasis? Can’t you only do that to liquids and non-living solids? I kinda remember you can’t do that to gases either.”
Neville’s countenance falls further. Shrugging and waving at me and Luna to follow him, he murmurs in a faraway tone, “Not impossible, if you’ve got desperate parents, increased power and death wishes mixed together.” Then, after a long, strained pause, in which we traverse the ruined cathedral-like hall as if a small procession in a funeral, he whispers, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched, “You told us that a Protego can’t shield against the Unforgivables. Might be true, in most cases. But Mum did it, for me. When the Dementors got near…. You know, that third year. They…. I saw Lestrange – Bellatrix – she demanded that Mum tell her ‘bout… about You-Know-Who, where he might be. I was in a cradle nearby, but not near enough, and I was standing looking at them. Lestrange saw me. She tried to Crucio me. Mum put a Protego in front of me so it missed. It got her mad; Lestrange. She Crucioed Mum instead.”
His breaths grow ragged towards the end, and I find my own eyes burning, squeezing in tandem with my heart, remembering my own mother. – `Damn Dementors. Damn Death Eaters. Damn Voldemort. Damn place.` Luna’s right, after all, in a roundabout way that’s so Luna: With the air of abandonment, struggle and desperation so thick here, it takes willful avoidance and opposite emotions to overcome it, and it just takes one gloomy thought to intrude the mind for one to be overcome by it instead.
Hopefully, despite how ridiculous the hope is, we’ll find something to banter about again once we’ve reached the second story of this sad house, or at least something to occupy ourselves with other than weeping over things we can’t change.
I have to stifle a mirthless snort of laughter on that thought, on that hope. With a war-torn-looking place like this….