A/N: This was written for the Light and Darkness Competition on HPFC with the prompts suspense, drinking a cup of tea, stupefy, Neville Longbottom, honeydew, eternity, satisfaction, "I'm sure I will visit your grave," and lifeless pony. (Nine total!) Oh gosh this came out so much longer than I expected, but I hope it's worth it. It was probably too fun to write. You'll see what I mean, I think. GO ORDER OF THE PHOENIX! (It's - er - part of the competition thing. I unintentionally did mention the Order in this, though.. huh.)

Demon in the Light

x

The first time Neville sees him, he is waking up to the light of the morning and rolls on his side towards the open window. He had forgotten to close the blinds the night before, but he stares through the window for a while and decides that it was a lucky thing he did. Hogwarts in the morning was something he had never been overly eager to see, especially as a boy, but now the quiet of the grounds reminds him that things are at peace, and it soothes him.

He is thinking these very pleasant thoughts when he sees him. At first he isn't sure what he sees, for his eyes are still bleary and unfocused from a long night's sleep, but he blinks and the figure doesn't fade away. He is standing at such a distance that he is rather small, like a doll almost, but his dark hair and round spectacles are unmistakable.

Neville starts at once, leaping over the empty side of his bed and hurrying like a madman to the window. He is the very image of a ghost, pale, wide-eyed and stricken as he stares after the figure, but his hysteria is left intact and unsatisfied as the man almost at once departs entirely from Neville's line of sight. He stares at the grass while his heart beats through his skull like a drum. He does not move for a very long time, and when he finally does his head is lighter than air and he has to steady himself against the wall.

He could have imagined it. Crawling over the left side of his bed, he tells himself this a few times, but still his limbs are shaky and weak. He needs sleep. The right side of the bed is still warm from where he left it. He will sleep a little longer, and then he will begin the day. And he will forget that he thought he saw Harry Potter, and the thought will never come up again.

xx

When he wakes up for the second time that morning, Neville Longbottom is a changed man. Or at least he has become rather adept at convincing himself of it. Absentmindedly he makes the bed, smoothing over his side as well as the other, and though both sides are his, really, he likes to think that there ought to still be another person there every night, and so he keeps to the right as if Hannah was still around to bother him over it. Where she should be now rests instead a slim, silver blade, something he has kept with him since the events of the summer. He has been keeping it in the pocket of the inside of his cloak for a week now, though it serves no real purpose other than the simple fact that it makes him safer, more... prepared. He fluffs the pillows and then quickly shuts the blinds without so much as glancing out, and goes to the bathroom to wash up for the day.

The water in the shower is suffocating. He has been standing there too long, staring at the gray spots between the tiles and the water as it runs to the floor, and the shower has begun to grow heavy with steam. It is not long before he is thinking of how Hannah had said to him before she left, "You're not ready to go back there. You think you are, you think you haven't changed, but you have, and what you're doing is trying to live a life that isn't yours anymore." It's like an echo in his mind, bouncing against the walls of his head over and over again, maddeningly soft and ferociously sincere. Her voice was once one of his favorite things about her, but now it only comes to him as something from his nightmares.

He turns his head over and lathers his thoughts in shampoo, silencing everything else.

xxx

"Professor Longbottom?" comes a female voice, and Neville looks up from his desk to see that it is Lily Potter. "I've finished my essay. I know it's not due for another class, but I thought I'd get ahead. Is it all right if I turn it in now?"

"Sure, sure," he tells her, and glances at her as briefly as possible while she hands the parchment to him. The one thing he had not anticipated was how painful seeing Harry's children would be. School has only been in session for a month, but it has not been an enjoyable experience. "Is that all, Miss Potter?"

She shuffles slightly, folding her hands behind her back. She smiles, gently. "Well, I suppose, only I wanted to say that I'm very glad you're back, Professor. Professor Carflour was absolutely horrid last term. I think she tried to poison us once, you know."

Something tightens slightly in his chest, and he meets her eyes. He is so very off kilter that he can't bother himself to feel at all flattered. Instead he is only hearing himself say, "I saw your father this morning," and the thought blocks out any feasible or appropriate response, because he knows he could not have, yet the image refuses to leave his mind.

With great effort, he manages to stiffen his expression so that he appears properly affected by her words and says, "I'm very glad to be back, and I gather that I should also be glad that I returned soon enough for none of my students to be poisoned. That would be a right shame, wouldn't it?"

She seems pleased with his response, laughs, and thanks him politely before returning to the group of fifth-year Gryffindors at the far end of the greenhouse. Though her hair is lighter, though she is far shorter and walks with less confidence and more sweetness, he imagines as she walks away that she is Ginny, and when he catches a glimpse of Lily's face again, she is every bit her mother.

xxxx

At the end of the week, he is eating dinner in the Great Hall and talking to the Muggle Studies professor, Leona Kurkby, a young woman with hair as golden as Hannah's, when he catches sight of him again. This time he does not start. In fact he does not move at all, not even to reply to the teacher's comment on something strange, irrelevant and uninteresting about Hogsmeade. He stares at the man sitting amongst children and his mind runs blank, his eyes seeing nothing else but the glimmer of his glasses beneath the light. It cannot be. It makes no sense. There is no possible way, not even if he was still...

"Neville?" She is still talking to him. Slowly he brings himself out of the trance and looks to her. "Neville, are you all right?"

He looks back to where Harry had been, but finds that he is no longer there. There is a brown-haired girl in his place.

"I'm—yeah. Yes... just tired, I think."

He sees Harry in that spot every evening following for the next month.

xxxxx

The blinds in his bedroom stay closed until winter. He has been taking potions regularly before bed; Madam Pomfrey suggests that he is just stressed and dealing with after-shock, and is projecting a false reality about him as a result. He is no longer seeing Harry Potter at every or any point in the day. Occasionally he catches a glimpse of someone who strikes a resemblance, but they hurry away so quickly that he does not bother to worry about it. He caught it—whatever it was, the anxiety, the stress—before he allowed it to bring him to madness.

The feeling of questioning still lingers, though, like the flash of light reflecting off of glass, or a fleeting blur of black hair.

When he wakes up that morning, it is the day before the Christmas holidays and the cold of fresh snow crawls through beneath the wall. He misses waking up to the sun in his face. Curiously and slowly he wanders to the window, asking himself if there is really anything to lose. Is he overreacting? He must be. It's only a window, for Merlin's sake. There isn't that much that can go wrong. And so, very gradually, he pulls the tired blinds open.

It is a mistake.

In the snow, a man is walking away from Neville's window with his hands in his pockets. He is closer than he ever has been, the image of him sharp and clear and all too vivid. Neville's heart nearly stops. He yanks the window open wildly and he is so hot in the face that he does not feel the winter flood his bedroom.

"Harry!"

The man turns. His glasses are fogged and his hair is damp and flat against his head. But it is him. Neville knows it. He isn't imagining it. He is solidly present right before Neville's face. He sees him smile, a lopsided thing that is so realistic it makes Neville's head ache.

"Why are you here?" he is screaming, and the words scrape against his dry throat but he does not care. "How are you here? Why are you following me?"

But Harry never answers. He only nods and then turns away, his dark coat overwhelmed by a whirlwind of white, and is gone.

Neville's words turn like smoke in the air, stretching farther and farther away before fading off into the air.

xxxxxx

Two days after Christmas, Neville meets Ginny Potter in a cafe a block away from her house called The Lifeless Pony. It has been months but there are still deep circles beneath her eyes, still dark veins beneath her skin as if her strength has all been sapped. But he notices that she has made an effort to look all right—her lips are coated with red lipstick and her hair is smoothed, and she smiles almost as she once had.

"Strange little place, isn't it?" she says as she takes the seat across from him. There are windows all over the walls in places here and there, but they are so small that the light that squeezes through is weak and generally ineffective at filling the empty space. Men sit huddled with dark cloaks masking their faces, and the bartender stands on a stool twice his own height with a large, round head of spiky yellow hair.

"Yes," he agrees without much hesitation. "Are those skulls on the wall? You'd think that would be a concern for the quality of their food here, wouldn't you? You don't think they put their customer's skulls on the wall, do you?"

Ginny makes a noise almost like laughing, and shrugs, gazing around. "I like it. It reminds me of the Hog's Head."

"Well, it is nearly as creepy, if that's what you mean."

She looks happy, in a way. "Neville," she says after a moment, "tell me about everything. We haven't written in a while; how's teaching been? You should have seen Lily's letter, she was thrilled... And Albus is rather happy about it, too, even though he doesn't take Herbology anymore, but he says it's nice to see a familiar face, what with everything, you know."

They are both brought tea, and it is not until the waitress leaves that he responds. "It's been good for me. It was strange at first, but I've grown accustomed to it." He is not entirely lying—it has been good for him, in ways, though that does not take account for all the ways that is has very much not been. He wants to tell her this—his face itches with the thought—but he should at least attempt to look nonchalant, shouldn't he? He wishes there wasn't an occasion for him to voice such a thing, wishes there was no occasion for him to possibly tell her he's carried a knife with him every day for months, but the world has changed. The steam of the tea drifts up to his face, warming his cold cheeks. He stirs it, restless for something to keep his mind away from the topic. "How are you? Have you been keeping busy?"

She does not respond immediately as she drinks her tea, and when she places the cup down Nevile can see the red lip stain across its brim. "Oh, yes, here and there, doing whatever I can... you won't believe it, but I ran into Hannah the other day at the market. I hadn't heard about the separation. Why didn't you tell me?"

Their last letter had been within the early days of September, and he had never found an appropriate way to discuss those details. He no longer flinches at the thought of their separation—they won't file for divorce until the summer—but it is still strange to word in his mind, like a man trying to speak for the first time. "It wasn't important, really. I mean, it was, when it happened, but I was trying to focus on other things. Still am, actually."

"But what happened? I'm so out of the loop of everything lately, I can't believe I didn't have any idea."

There are many reasons, but he settles for, "She didn't want me to go back. Not right away." And because she is Ginny and because they were once very good friends, he tells her, "She wanted to start a family. We'd talked about it, and she had her mind set on it, but then Flitwick sent me a letter asking me to return, and I couldn't say no. I needed it for myself."

She frowns. He knows she is not very sorry, for there are worse ways for a marriage to end, but she is still sorry in some form. He's not really searching for understanding, anyways. "And was it worth it?" she asks. "Do you regret it? Returning?"

He does. "No," he says instead. "Not entirely." Collecting a sharp breath, he says, "Listen, Ginny, there's something I need to say, and I'm just going to say it because I have to. I've seen someone. At school."

"What do you mean?" She looks confused. "A woman?"

"No, no... I really haven't the time for that now. No, I've... caught glimpses of someone. And, I, well—it's disconcerting, and you might not like to hear it—"

"Neville, really, what are you going on about?"

And before he can possibly doubt himself, he blurts, "Harry is still alive."

The color in Ginny's face goes at once. She stares at him, a microscopic gape on her mouth, a skeptical, angry crease between her brows. "What the hell, Neville? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I've seen him, Ginny, honest," he insists, drawing his hand forward. "I think he's trying to tell me something. He's always been clever, the whole thing could have been a ruse... I mean, he's the Boy Who Lived, and all the times we thought he died before, he's always come back! What if this isn't any different?"

Ginny appears to be growing furious, and her cheeks flush again, more viciously. "You can't just spew utter nonsense like this," she says breathlessly. "You saw him die! You said so—you were there when they killed him—you'd know better than anyone—"

He continues unaffected, growing more sure of himself by the second, "Yes, exactly!"

"What? What exactly? I said you saw him die!"

"I was a part of the Third Order, and when the Death Eaters reemerged, I was the one Harry asked to fight alongside him. I left my teaching position and went and fought with him—I understand his tactics better than anyone, probably! Listen, listen Ginny, it's a ruse—only I don't know quite understand it yet—but there are better things coming, and I know for certain that..."

"That you're bloody insane?" she explodes. The sudden volume of her voice turns a few heads, but neither of them notice. "Neville, I buried Harry. He's dead, and so apparently is your brain—the nerve you've got, to say these utterly lunatic things—"

"I saw him! I opened the window and shouted and he turned."

"And he didn't happen to tell you why he'd so conveniently returned from the dead?"

"No, I—he didn't say anything, but I saw his face, it was him, I swear it, and I just know there must be something going on..."

Ginny closes her eyes and pushes her cup of tea forward rather indelicately. It spills over on the sides and drips onto the table, but she doesn't see it, and if she had, she wouldn't have cared. "If you have any respect for me and my family, you will never bring this topic up ever again."

"Ginny, wait, please—"

"No." She stands, and her chair scrapes harshly against the floor. "No, and don't you even think of approaching my children about this or so help me God I will report you to the Headmaster without so much as thinking twice."

"Ginny... Wait..."

"No." And she rushes out of the cafe before he can think to say anything else.

xxxxxxx

After the winter holidays, Hogwarts feels different to Neville. And not even different in the fact that he is seeing Harry Potter, who is most assuredly dead, but in the fact that he is not very sure why he is there at all.

A week back into the schedule, and Neville's head is throbbing. The class is full of first year Ravenclaws, and lovely students though they are, they are being much too loud. After a brief demonstration, Neville bounds upon the opportunity to sit at his desk alone and leaves them to their own business. He supposes it is not exactly the most pristine teacher protocol, but he is suffering too badly to care.

Last night, he decided that Harry was a ghost. Or, at least, something of that sort, for he was quite determined that he had seen something real and physical, but also very sure that he had seen that same man die. And maybe he had been right that day in the cafe with Ginny, but thinking about that only made his head hurt worse, and so he settled on the idea that he was a ghost.

A loud noise alerts Neville's attention, and his head snaps up at once. There is a great flash of light and he stands as he is shrouded in a cloud of smoke. His headache subsides, for the most part, to a dull throb towards the back of his head. Hazily he tries to make sense of what has happened—they are just first years, he supposes, so it was silly to leave them alone, but they're Ravenclaws, so he thought that they could figure it out for themselves, at least...

But very suddenly Neville realizes that it is nothing that his students have done at all. The smoke begins to part and there is a man standing at the center, in nothing but sleek, glimmering black. Behind him come several identical men, though the one at the front is by far the tallest. Somehow, he knows what the man will say before he ever says it.

"Neville Longbottom," comes the voice, low and deep like an earthquake, "have you ever thought about death?"

"No," Neville says loudly, but he is not answering the question. He has fallen back against the wall, trembling violently, "No, no, this isn't happening—what are you doing here?"

A smaller voice, distant, heard as if through a wall: "Professor Longbottom, are you all right?"

"What's going on, Professor?"

"Sir—"

He can't breathe. He can't stand. He can't even move.

The man walks forward. Neville cannot see his face. "I've thought about death. Several times. Everyone does, at some point or another. But do you think about it often? Have you ever thought about how it will be? Will it be glorious, a brave ending for a well deserved hero?" He comes forward, forward more. His wand is only barely visible against the white of his skin. "Or will you die a coward? A traitor? Forgotten?"

"This has already happened!" Neville screeches, and he claws at his cloak for his knife. There is nothing there. He has forgotten it in his office... It is not here... He has carried it for months, and the one day he forgets... He reaches for the other pocket instead.

"Professor, what are you doing with your wand?"

"Perhaps—perhaps someone ought to fetch Madam Pomfrey, or—"

Though masked in black, Neville knows the man is grinning, an evil thing of an expression. "How would you like to die, Neville Longbottom?"

"I'm not dying," he shouts to him, "I'm not dying, and nor is anybody else!"

"None of us can choose when we will die, Neville... that's not the way of the world," the man tells him. "It's chosen for us. Each and every one of us. And when that time comes, I'm sure I will visit your grave."

"Neville! Are you here? Neville—Expelliarmus!" A wand flies through the air. "Stupefy! Stupefy! Neville—get out of here!" Dark bodies begin falling to the ground all over, but soon they are fighting back, and the room is filled with light and color...

"Harry," Neville says, but it is a whisper, a dark one, one that knows too much, "Harry, Harry, no, you—you can't be here—you've got to get out—"

He pulls his wand out farther, threatening, approaching, and he is about to form the words before a jet of green strikes Harry's chest, and Neville begins to scream.

"Harry! Harry—no!"

Neville can no longer see for the world has gone very dark, and quickly he loses his place and feels the ground upon his hands. No, Harry—but Harry was dead—he had died already—this made no sense—how could he still—

"Professor Longbottom," a voice called, a smooth, cool hand on his forehead accompanying it, "Neville, can you hear me?"

The world swirls with black, stabbing him at all sides, pulsing with heat and confusion, his breathing out of control. He can hear the gentle voice again and again, lulling him to the surface like a wave, pulling him back through to consciousness before he dives below it again and again and again...

After another moment, he summons enough strength to open his eyes. Poppy Pomfrey's bright blue eyes are before him, and behind her, a classroom of wide-eyed students, huddled around their teacher only an arm's distance away.

There is no smoke in the room, and Harry's body is nowhere to be seen.

xxxxxxxx

He sits in the cold room with his arms wrapped around himself. "I can't teach anymore," he says aloud. He is speaking to his mother, and though she is listening, she will never understand. The hospital gown is itchy and uncomfortable and the cold seeps through to him from beneath it. "Not for a while. Years, maybe. I am apparently suffering severe mental trauma."

His mother's eyes are distant. She looks at him, but whether or not she sees the face of her son, he can't possibly know. He imagines that she can, and takes her hands anyway.

"Oh, Mum," he says, voice cracking with a sob, "I don't know why I did it. Why did I think I could go back? I wasn't ready. Hannah was right. She always was. It changed me, Mum, seeing Harry die. And they—they did things to me, afterwards, tortured me, made me see him die over and over again until I wanted to die myself." He drops his mother's hands, cradling his head in his own. "I just couldn't be like you and Dad, Mum. And I know it's different. Yours was physical, and mine was mental, but I wanted to be—to be all right, so that Hannah and I could start a family, so that our baby could have two... two parents, the way it's supposed to be."

He is crying now, hot tears that burn when they fall against his cold skin.

"I wish you were here. Every day of my life I've wished it, hoped that I could live up to your expectations, whatever they could have been. I—wanted to fight, to do something, make a difference, kill the demons that live in your head." He moves forward, leaning his head on his mother's shoulder, staining her gown with tears. "If only you could kill your demons, Mum."

xxxxxxxx

It is warm at Hogwarts now, and the early summer sun beats down on his head before he ducks through the doors and heads inside. As he passes through, students hesitantly meet his eye, though when they do—whether it is by accident or not—they smile politely, and Neville is put at ease. He scales the stairs and greets the portraits hello on his way, and in the corridor he comes across Professor Kurkby, the woman with the blonde hair like Hannah's.

"Neville," she gasps, though not unpleasantly. She does a double-take, then quickly, before he can hardly anticipate it, envelops him in a hug. "You're back! How are you feeling?"

"Quite good, thanks," he tells her as she releases him. He wants to breeze on by, but they're friends, he supposes, and braces himself for a moment longer.

"What are you doing back already? It's so soon. Already back on your feet, are you?"

"Not entirely, no. I've come to gather my things, and then I'll be at home for a while. Just to make sure I'm all in check, you know." He is rather cheery, given the circumstances; he suspects it has something to do with the potions he has been taking three times a day. "I've heard that Filius stored my things in his office while I was gone—do you know if he did?"

"I'm sure he did, he's always liked to look out for you," she replies, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face absentmindedly. "Listen, if you're feeling off at all, just make sure to take it easy, all right? I wouldn't want you to be overwhelmed."

Neville shakes his head. Take it easy... as if it's ever been as easy as that. "Oh, no, no, I'll be fine. I've had months to recuperate. I can't even explain to you how much better I'm feeling. It's magic, honest."

"That's really great, Neville, I'm glad." She grins and reaches out to squeeze his hand. "You'll write me, won't you? Let me know how you're doing?"

"Of course," he agrees readily, "of course."

"All right," she says, her little eyes lighting up, "well, I've got to be on my way. End of the year craziness, you know..."

He chuckles. "That I do. Well, take care of yourself, Leona."

"And you, Neville! And you."

Shortly afterwards he is on his way to the Charms corridor, whistling a springy tune he'd heard during his lengthy stay in the hospital. He thinks that he will write Leona Kurkby very soon. He's always been fond of her, but there was something about her... her hair, or the way her mouth pinched at the corners when she was thinking hard... well, anyhow, whatever it was, there was always something that made Neville hesitate, but considering he'd nearly gone down as a madman in the books a few months before, he thinks there really isn't much time in life for hesitation.

He's very glad he's not a madman.

Arriving shortly at Professor Flitwick's office, Neville enters, locates his pile of belongings, balances the single box between his elbows, and departs. The nurses specifically instructed that he spend as little time as possible on the school grounds; it would be good for him to go back for a little while, they decided, but they were going to be careful about it. He personally thought they were being rather paranoid.

"Hello, professor."

When Neville looks up, he is so surprised that his arms go numb and cold and the box he is holding falls to the ground at his feet. He is babbling though he does not quite realize it, and takes a few steps back, eyes wide.

"You're not supposed to be here," he says lowly. "Why do you keep doing this to me? You—I thought you were just—you're not real. I know you're not. Why are you doing this to me?"

Harry is grinning. Not kindly. He crosses his arms over his chest, steps forward. "I just thought I'd pay you a visit. I haven't gotten the chance to properly talk to you, let alone thank you."

"Thank... thank me?"

"Oh, yeah," Harry says, "for letting me die."

"I didn't let you die," Neville blurts out madly, "I tried!"

"Well, I'm not dead anyhow, and I don't plan on going away."

"It's your fault!" Neville points an unsteady finger at him. "All of this—I can't even teach anymore—I'm getting divorced—it's all your fault! Because you won't leave me alone!"

"But I haven't done anything, Neville. I haven't even seen you in months. Have I?"

"No, no... and I was getting better without you. And I'm going to keep..."

"But we're friends, Neville." Harry is getting closer, the warmth of his breath on Neville's skin, the sound of his voice escalating, the only sound left in the universe, "Aren't we? We were always good friends."

Neville closes his eyes, shaking his head frantically, trying to escape, "Get away, Harry. You're not real. You only cause me problems."

When Neville opens his eyes, Harry is still there. He tilts his head to the side, bright eyes peering into his soul. "Did you ever think," he says, "that maybe they kept showing you how I died so that you could save me?"

"Why would they do that?"

"Why else would they? Think about it, Neville." Harry pauses, unfolding his arms. "You saw me die a thousand times, a thousand times you could have saved me, a thousand times you didn't."

"Stop." Neville is getting angry.

"I know you talked to Ginny. Why'd you do it? Because you feel guilty? You wanted to make it up to her, because it was your fault. Wasn't it? It was."

"Stop."

"I know you hated having Lily in your class this year. I could see it. You hated her because of me. You hated that you ruined her life, so you hated her, too."

"Stop."

"Don't you think that's a bit cowardly, Neville? Couldn't take responsibility for yourself and your own lack of action, so you took it out on someone else? Do you think that she deserved that? Do you think I deserved—"

"Stop!" Neville screams, and he lunges at Harry, the blade he has carried for months and months and months in his hand, "Stop talking! Stop! Stop talking!"

And in a moment there is red everywhere. Neville has it on his hands, and it trails down his wrists, all the way to the bottom of his forearm, the blood coating his skin like paint. He stares at Harry, who has fallen to the floor, the glimmering silver blade jutting from his neck, the white of his eyes overwhelming his face. For a moment, a very brief heartbeat of a moment, he feels absurd satisfaction—the eternity has ended—but he is still breathing so hard that it is the only sound he can hear for a long time, before the pounding of running feet come to meet him, and a voice is yelling, "Longbottom! Longbottom, what have you done?"

He turns to stare at Professor Flitwick, who falls to the floor by Harry. "I've killed my demons, sir," he says, as if it might be the most obvious thing in the world.

"What have you done?" he cries again.

But there is something Neville does not understand. Filius Flitwick cradles Harry's head in his lap, aghast and struck, and behind Flitwick come many other terrified faces, all ones he cannot recognize at once.

"You—you can see him?" Neville hears himself saying, "You can see Harry? How can you see Harry?"

The knife has fallen to the floor and Harry's blood is sinking into the ground, the red melding deeper and deeper into the gray, becoming one. Harry's body is slighter as the red pools around him. His body seems to have shrunken and doesn't look like the build of a man at all. Neville's mouth parts open as he drags his eyes back to Harry's face, and it is for the first time that he sees what he has done. He finally understands.

On the floor is seventeen year old Albus Potter, eyes the color of sweet honeydew, staring up at a world he will never see again.

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