Chapter Text
Longbottom Manor
Half Past Midnight
March 20, 1990
Nine-year-old Neville Frank Longbottom perched, fully dressed, on the edge of the bathtub in his private loo, eyes fixed on the small portrait in his hand as he waited for the call that would trigger the cross-dimensional portal leading him to a parallel universe.
He'd considered, at first, wearing his dress robes for the occasion. It only seemed appropriate since he was heading off to a version of his world that would be celebrating, even as he arrived, his aged counterpart, Big Nev Longbottom's, funeral. In the end, though, the nine-year-old de facto Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom had decided that that probably wasn't a good idea. Big Nev wasn't really dead, after all. As he'd explained the second of the three times he and Neville had talked, his soul would be shuffling off its hundred-thirty-six-year-old mortal coil alright, but it would not be Continuing On afterward. Rather, it would be Crossing Over, passing Neville himself as they swapped places in their respective universes. Neville, of course, would be taking both his own mortal coil and soul with him, but the magically-regenerated-and chronologically-revisited body that the just-deceased Big Nev planned to inhabit while he was visiting Neville's world would be in a lot of trouble with Gran if it couldn't explain where its St. Roux had got to.
So instead, and once Neville had confirmed his acceptance of Big Nev's invitation to join The Project, he ordered Dolly, Longbottom Manor's Head House-Elf, to go out and buy him his traveling clothes from the second-hand shops on Diagon Alley.
"Trousers, shirt, robe, and shoes," Neville instructed her as he'd handed off all of his small savings. "Nothing too fancy, but as nice as you can find for the money. And don't you go telling Gran either, or the other house-elves, or Uncle Algie or anybody . Not with words, not with notes, not with hand signals or ear wiggles or metaphors or analogies or anything . If you do, I just might be buying you clothes to be going on with, once I've saved up more money anyway. And no, before you ask, I'm not going to tell you why I want them. It's private."
Dolly sniffed at him at that, but her magics did bind her to the direct order. She cracked out and returned within the hour, tucking the items under his bed as requested. They were quite satisfactory, Neville thought, if all done up, in obvious reflection of the house-elf's opinion of his sneaky methods, in Slytherin green. It wasn't exactly an insult, mind, but there could be no misreading the metaphor there either. Dolly had come to Longbottom from House Malfoy, where every elf was trained by their master, Lucius Malfoy, in the (surprisingly useful) Art and Science of Applied Metaphors. Lucius Malfoy and his wife were Neville's unofficial godparents, and they were both so sneakily Slytherin that they practically bled green.
Or at least, they were good at pretending to be Slytherins, though it all came out to the same thing in the end when one thought about it. The game there would be up in a shot, mind, if anyone (Lucius Malfoy included) ever realized what his wife's Animagus form was. Neville was fairly sure that he was the only person alive who knew that Narcissa Black Malfoy was an Animagus at all, and that was only because he'd caught her out. Auntie Niss, as her godson called her, had been watching him while Gran was at an evening church meeting a year and a half ago now, and the just-turned eight-year-old boy had come down the stairs to fetch himself up a glass of milk from the kitchen. He'd nearly scared both of them into weeing themselves when he'd caught her having a good stretch-and-roll in front of the fire.
"You mustn't tell anyone, Neville," Narcissa warned him firmly as she'd settled him with a mug of cocoa. "Ever. I'm completely illegal because I'm not registered, and it's a secret besides."
"But why?" Neville said plaintively. He didn't really care about the illegal part; that was just stupid, he thought - nobody had any right to tell you that you had to tell them what you got up to in private as long as you weren't hurting anybody with it - but... "Why is it a secret? It's brilliant! I never even knew you wanted to be an Animagus! How old were you when you learned?'
"No one knew. Knows. And I was eighteen when I managed it. I started working at it when I was fifteen, privately - very privately, as in completely-on-my-own-and-without-supervision privately - so that I might be of help during the war. I did succeed, as you saw, only... Well. I wasn't exactly what I was expecting in the end. And it's not like it's a very useful form, is it?"
"I dunno about that," Neville said judiciously. "I could think of a few things I could use it for. Wait, no one knows? Not even Uncle Luke?"
The pained, rather embarrassed look on Narcissa's face at that actually made him laugh.
"I'll tell him one day," she said. "I'm sure. I just need to work my way up to it."
"It's been seventeen years since you were eighteen," eight-year-old Neville pointed out. "What are you waiting for, your twentieth wedding anniversary? Your twenty fifth, maybe? Or your fiftieth, even?"
His unofficial godmother hadn't said anything more, only offered him The Look. Neville smirked at her behind his cocoa.
"I won't tell," he promised. "But I still think it's brilliant. And alright, maybe it's not useful, but it does really suit you."
"You hush," she ordered him. "It does not."
He smirked again. She swatted his blond head lightly.
"Mind your promise," she ordered. "Or I'll tell your Gran you broke your word to me, and then you'll be in for it."
"I might be," Neville agreed. "After she finishes laughing anyway, and that'd give me time to run for it."
"I'd catch you and bring you back to her." She blurred again. Neville put his cocoa down as she nuzzled at him, then put his little arms around her neck and hugged her hard. She nuzzled back and blurred again, the magnificent pale gold lioness with eyes of sea-green before him reshaping to the base form of the equally magnificent woman with pale gold hair and the same eyes.
"Is Uncle Luke an Animagus too?" Neville inquired, interested, as she re-seated herself.
"I have no idea. If he is, he hasn't told me about it."
"Maybe he's embarrassed too? What do you think I'd be if I were an Animagus, Auntie Niss?"
"I have no idea," she said again. "And you'd have to tell me a bit more about yourself, wouldn't you, before I could make an educated guess?"
"You know everything there is to know about me!" Neville protested. "I'm only eight; it's not like there's that much to be going on with!"
"Mm. Well, whatever it is, I can tell you this much. It won't stutter, will it?"
"Wh-what?"
"I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me." Narcissa Black Malfoy smiled at him. Neville flushed red, but nodded quickly. She leaned over and kissed his cheek gently.
"Back to bed with you," she ordered, and conjured a ball of blue fire and a glass jar, dropping the fire in neatly. "Here you are. Put it by your bed, and it will last till morning."
He'd taken the jar and padded off, glancing over his shoulder. She just winked at him and flicked her fingers. Tiny lightning bolts promptly nipped at his heels. He took the hint and bolted himself, as rapidly as he could without spilling the jar.
He couldn't bring anything else besides the clothes, Neville reminded himself firmly as he sat on his bathtub and went over his notes in his head as he waited. There were a few things he would have liked to bring - one or two of his favourite books from Dad's collection, perhaps, with one or two of Mum's candy wrappers for markers - but Big Nev had told him that it just wasn't possible. The Project Managers weren't even sure his clothes would come through in the end. That was why the swap was happening (from Neville's side, at least) in his private loo. If all went well, he'd land smack in Big Nev's childhood equivalent, and if he came in starkers after all, they'd have something right there waiting.
Neville turned the framed portrait he held his hands over, examining it. Big Nev had told him that it would flash and warm to burning at some point during the night of the Spring Solstice, signifying the beginning of the magical rituals that the Project Managers had started on his end. At some point within the hour following, it would flash again. At that point, Neville would have exactly three minutes to get to his loo and place the portrait faces-side-up on the floor before the canvas would fade out and the frame/cross-dimensional portal would enlarge to an appropriate size for a very small boy about to take a very, very large leap of faith.
After that...
Neville had no idea what would happen after that. Nobody was quite sure what would happen after that, not even the Project Managers. The theory was all sound, Big Nev had reassured him. They'd accounted for every single detail they could imagine too, and there were some very creative people involved there. Still. No one had ever done up anything like the Project before, so even though they knew where they'd all start and where they'd all end up, the details of the in-between part: the Crossing-Over part (and that was the part, when it came right down to it, that worried Neville the most: 'There and Back Again' was all very well, but, Smaug notwithstanding, it was the Journey Between that had given poor Bilbo the most headaches), were rather up for speculative grabs.
"We're the wizards here, though," Big Nev had reassured him. "Witches too, and we've not only got Gandalf on our side, we've got all of his acquaintances-friends-and-relations too. And he's got a bloody buggering lot of those to be going on with, even if they were never mentioned in the book."
"Gandalf exists in your world?" Neville brightened. "Really?"
"In a portrait, yeah. Portraits don't provide much in the way of original ideas, but he's good for inciting positive public morale, anyway."
"Oh well. Morale," Neville said, rather scornfully. "They talk about morale at the Ministry of Magic here. A lot. Gran says it's their favourite word, which just goes to show that no one in charge was ever a proper Longbottom. Longbottoms don't do morale. We Get The Thing Done. It's our motto."
"Mm," Big Nev agreed. "So let's just go with that on our end, and leave the rest to God."
"Did your portrait of Gandalf say that too?" Neville asked skeptically. Big Nev snorted. There was more than a bit of a sour note there.
"No," he said. "He was always all over the 'leave it to me.' Except when he was all over the 'it's all down to you.'"
"So you knew him?" Neville probed. "When he was alive?"
"Yeah. He wasn't a bad sort," Big Nev said. "He just wasn't God. And he thought he was, or more God than anyone else available anyway, and that's why we're here talking now, when it comes right down to it."
"Isn't that because of You Know Who?"
"No. Riddle" - Big Nev always used You Know Who's proper name - "Just... Was. People like him always are. Bit predictable with it, really, and if you're aware, you can spot them and work to accommodate before they establish themselves as such. The problem starts when they have established themselves, and no one standing against them can agree on how best to deal with them. Or who should be dealing with them. Or who has the right to tell the people that they designate as the dealers on how they should properly do their job, or even more importantly, advise them on actions - or options, even - that might actually help them along there so there's the least amount of damage done all around."
Neville, of course, couldn't, and didn't, have the context to process the subtext and finer implications there, but he got the gist anyway.
"Warding," he said. Big Nev blinked at him, startled.
"Uh?"
"You're talking about Warding. Warders are better than Aurors. Warders prevent messes. Aurors solve the messes. Or they try, anyway. Sometimes the Aurors end up as the messes."
"Do you know any Warders?" Big Nev asked curiously.
"Yeah," Neville said, a bit dourly. "Us. That's what we're doing, right? Preventing problems? Gran wants me to be an Auror like Dad and Mum, but I don't reckon she quite gets that it's not what I've got from all of this."
"No," Big Nev said after a moment. "She probably doesn't. But then, we never told her, did we?"
"If we did," his younger counterpart said darkly, "We'd have to tell her The Rest. And that... That's private."
"Yeah," Big Nev said after another moment. "It is. Only... Can I say something here, Neville?"
"Sure."
"It's all been private for me," Big Nev said carefully. "My whole life. It's been a good life, in many ways... But sometimes I wonder if I'd do the same things I did, if I were to go back and be nine again. Keep it private, that is. Knowing how it would end up for me. And what differences it might have made, not just for me, but for everybody. Little things, they make all the difference, you know? And sometimes it's easier to watch out for the crucial points in time where they occur and prevent the differences than it is to change the results afterwards again. Normally, that's really, really hard; not many people have the ability or instincts to detect those points in time before they happen... But you do, don't you? You do, because I'm you, only older, and I can tell you."
"And I'm at one of those points now?" Neville asked him. "I mean... Do I have to decide now? Whether I keep it all private?"
"Not necessarily. You could decide that any point in your life. I think though," Big Nev said carefully again. "That you're at a point where it could make the most difference. I don't know whether it would make a good difference or a bad one, or what would happen after... I can't tell you that because I never made that decision myself - but I am saying that I'm sure, absolutely sure, that it would make a difference. Maybe... And it's instinct again, not foreknowledge... The difference."
"But don't I have to be the same as you? And do the same as you? If we're going to be the same to come back?"
"No," Big Nev said. "You don't. 'Same' doesn't quite mean what you think it does, Neville. It doesn't mean we do the exact same things all the time. What it means is that if you were raised as I had been, with the same things happening to you, that you would make the same decisions I would have, based on our identical ways of thinking and processing different situations. And if I'd been raised as you've been, I would have made the same decisions you've made, based on the same things. We're the same; we're matched... Our souls match... But not because our lives have been exactly the same, but because we're, absolutely again, inclined to react instinctively to any given situation in the same way. To think certain ways. To consider the same kind of things, no matter our differing situations, when we take the details into account."
Neville thought on that. Hard.
"Up to this point," Big Nev explained. "We've matched. If I had never talked to you in the portrait, we would continue to match. That's how the magics define us as identical souls. And we needed to be identical souls to create the door between Here and There, right? The Gate. To open it. And we have created the Gate, and it's all set to be opened... That's done. The requirements are fulfilled. Now all that's left is to unlock it and go through, and once we have, if you want to, you can decide to do things differently. To try something new, something that I didn't do, or wouldn't have done. That you wouldn't normally do, or wouldn't do. If you do make different decisions while you're away... It won't affect your ability to come back home. Because the Gate won't close, it'll be jammed open a bit from this first time around, so we won't have to do all the really hard magics twice."
"Would I still fit though? After?" Neville said dubiously. "I mean, the door - the Gate, I mean - makes its shape from our magical cores, you told me. It'll stay that shape even if it's jammed, yeah? And I'm that one shape now, but if I make different choices than I normally would, big choices... Won't my core change shape too?"
"Yes, but you'll fit," Big Nev reassured him. "It's one of the reasons we picked us at this age. When you were nine. Your magical core's still really squishy and movable, see? Developing. You can change a bit, and still squeeze back, and will continue to be able to do so till you're about fourteen. After that, things starts firming up a bit more."
Enlightenment dawned. "So that's why the five year limit!"
"Exactly. So that's you. You don't have to worry there. With me, though, it's a bit different. If I change too much while I'm away, it would be a lot harder to come back. My core's solidly established now that I'm old. If I do something that will make it reshape itself, the implications would be a lot more drastic."
"You couldn't go back," Neville surmised.
"No. I couldn't. But then... I'm not meant to go back, am I? Not to live again, anyway. I'm meant to go On. At the end of the five years, the body the magics create for me will dissolve, and my soul will go On from the point souls usually do when bodies die. If I go through the Gate, my soul will go through from my side. If I don't, I'll still go On, just from your side."
"Do you think you'd go to the same place?" Neville asked as he pondered that. "Do you think After's the same, no matter what side you go from?"
"Some people don't," Big Nev said. "Most of them. It's logic, right? Different universe, different versions of ourselves, different, if matched, souls, so logically again, there'd be a different After. That's why the Project Managers built in the possibility of the return trip for all of the souls involved, not just for the souls crossing over with their original bodies. So that we who Crossed as souls without bodies can go to the After that we were born to go to when it's all over. But I don't think it works that way. I think it's all the same. Well," he corrected himself. "Not the same. That's not the right word. I think, when it comes down to it, that it's all One."
"So it doesn't really matter if either of us change after we get where we're going."
Big Nev had offered him his crooked little grin at that. "No," he said. "I don't suppose it does."
"I'll think about it," Neville said, reserved. "But only if you promise to think about it too."
Big Nev laughed. It sounded rather like a bear's roar. "How did I know you were going to say that," he teased.
"Maybe Gandalf told you?" Neville suggested. Big Nev didn't bother with the laugh at that one, he just threw back his head and roared directly.