Forgotten
By Rey

A routine visit to his parents at St. Mungo's yields something unpleasantly non-routine for one Neville Longbottom.

Story tags: POV Neville Longbottom, Hurt/Comfort, Family, Stream of Consciousness, POV First Person, Mental Health Issues, Memory Loss, Mental Breakdown

Started on: 12th June 2012 at 12:20 PM

Finished on: 15th February 2020 at 07:07 PM

20th June 1996

An old man lies quietly on the bed, looking vacantly at the ceiling. Across the room, an equally old woman is seated on her bed, humming monotonously, with a similar blank look in her eyes.

They look so different, in pictures.

"Mum? Dad? Hello," I call softly, as my feet automatically bring me to the space between their beds. But none of the two people there, looking much older than they are in truth, react to my voice, let alone my call.

They never do.

"Dad, I got one hundred and twenty percent in Herbology for this year. Can you believe it?" I try to smile, seating myself on the edge of my father's bed and holding his frail hand in my own. "Gran wants me to be an Auror, like you and Mum, but I think I'm going to be a herbologist, like Granpa. Professor Sprout's been so kind to me! She advises me to 'follow my heart', and I think my heart's set on herbology."

An Auror. Gran wants me to be an Auror, like my parents.

My nearly catatonic, old-long-before-their-time parents.

Does Gran actually hope, deep down in her heart, that I am going to end up like them? – Famous for a time, and then gone like yesterday's news. Defending civilians here and there and everywhere, then tortured into insanity in their own home.

Well, maybe. After all, I'm nearly a Squib, no? And it's a long-held belief that it's better to die than to live as a Squib.

Better to die than to live as a Squib, maybe, she thinks. But this is not death. This is torture. Torture and degradation.

Because Frank Longbottom, a formerly famous and well-respected defender of the Wizarding World's peace, whose courage my grandmother always boasts to me in every chance she gets, doesn't – can't – even reciprocate, or look at me, as I'm squeezing his hand in farewell.

And he's been like that for ten years.

I remove myself to my mother's bedside, without a last look at my father. He'd just looks at the ceiling, anyway, as usual, and I can't stand that. Too painful.

"Mum?" My smile is definitely shaky now, but I still try my best.

Even if my mother won't notice, just like my father.

And she doesn't, indeed. She still looks emptily round the room, never settling on one spot for long, let alone on me.

"I missed you." And I do, oh yes I do, very much, despite everything. Gran always tells me warm stories about her: an Auror equal to my father, but an excellent mother too. She features heavily in my nicest dreams.

But not in reality.

My heart twinges with pain. It's all too familiar.

I can't stand this. No more. I can't stand this.

"See you on Christmas, Mum," I whisper, as I hug her sidewise, careful of her frail frame. She looks at me at last, but there's no recognision in her eyes.

She doesn't hug back. She never does. She can't.

I stand up, but she stays seated, looking blankly at the spot formerly occupied by my face. I remain in place, waiting for the bubblegum wrapper she usually gives me before I go home.

But she doesn't do anything.

Chill settles in my belly. Her memory is degrading again.

"Bye-bye, Mum." My voice quivers hard. But I try not to run, as I stumble away from the beds, from my parents – from the shells that used to be my parents.

Gran's stern look and bearing welcome me by the door. "Neville?" she implores. But I can't make my feet stop, can't make the tears stop, can't make my mother's memory degradation stop.

I wish I could forget, too. I wish I could forget everything.