Trust by blackhairedweasley
Chapter Notes: The following contains the second half of Prompt 9 and Prompt 10.
Trust
Chapter 4 – The Betrayal
“My, my, my...” a deep voice said. “You thought you could get away from us, didn't you Pritchard?” Kingsley Shacklebolt pulled the hood back from his head, revealing his intimidating eyes. “Only been gone a day and you've already made a new friend, haven't you?” He walked over to Harry and looked him directly in the eyes.
“To think, I really thought you were on our side, Severus...” he said before violently sinking his fist into his stomach.
“Kingsley!” Neville yelled. “It's me! Neville!” Shacklebolt wheeled around.
“You keep your mouth shut until we say so, Pritchard.” he said. He then took a rock from the ground and pointed his unusually long wand at it and muttering
“We're going back to the ministry,” he said. With that, they forced Harry's and Neville's hands onto the stone, and after each auror taking hold as well, the five of them felt the pull behind their naval and were gone from the chilly beach.
***
Neville didn't want to look at her. Even after what he had said, he knew he didn't really mean it. Even as she stood by the door, he didn't want her to step through it.
“I just want you to know, Neville,” she said, her eyes full of tears, “that I'll always—”
“Last year,” Neville cut her off, “when yu were poisoned by Flint, I was ready to give my blood for the antidote.” Ginny turned, her hands together. “I had the knife on my arm, and you still said 'wait for Harry. He'll make sure the potion is right.' But you just wanted his blood instead of mine.”
“Neville,” Ginny tried, “Harry told me that when Voldemort took his blood to get another body, he gained some of Harry's powers. Harry said that there was a possibility that...” her eyes were fixed to the floor as she trailed off.
“That you'd get some of his power,” Neville finished for her. Ginny nodded. “Well did you?” Ginny didn't answer, so Neville simply sighed.
“It felt horrible,” Nevile began again, slowly, “to want to save someone's life, and have to argue about it.” Ginny came back and sat on the bed once more. “If there's anything that made me feel worthless, it's that.” Ginny took his hand, this time Neville didn't pull away.
“You're not worthless, Neville,” she said. “There's no one I'd rather go to battle with, or trust with my life. And I can tell you honestly, there's no one else I'd rather call my friend.”
Neville said nothing. He didn't want to answer, for he didn't trust what he would say. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he stood.
“I have to get ready to go,” he said. As he began to rummage though his things, he chanced a glance behind him. He watched as Ginny, her face shrouded by her hair again, stepped through the doorway and closed it behind her.
***
Neville's feet landed inside a small room lit by four candles at each corner. He and Harry were then violently shoved into seats opposite each other. Without saying a word, Shacklebolt bound their hands, then took a chair from the side and placed it directly in front of Neville. With an air of impatient satisfaction, Kingsley sat heavily into the wooden chair, causing it to creak slightly.
“What were you looking for today?” He asked. Neville waisted no time.
“Kingsley, it's me. I have the polyjuice potion in my robes—“ Neville was backhanded hard across the face by Shacklebolt. After a moment, he stepped to one of the guards by the door, and took nearly a minute whispering in his ear.
Neville didn't know why, but he had a very bad feeling about this and had no intention of being completely helpless. While the guards were preoccupied, Neville signaled Harry with his hands. He concentrated deeply on his target and then thought the incantation accio wand! Silently, just as the guard turned his hip, Neville's wand slipped from his belt and flew to Neville's hand. Carefully, he slipped it inside the sleeve of his robes, then looked up to Harry and nodded, instructing him to do the same.
Harry's wand slipped inside his sleeve just after Kingsley was finished, the guard he spoke to leaving in a hurry. Shacklebolt took a moment before addressing Neville again.
“There are much better interrogators then I, Pritchard,” he said menacingly, “and they're on their way right now. You can talk to me, or you can talk to them. I can assure you they will not be as gentle as I am.”
“Kingsley, I—” but another slap struck Neville's face before he could say another word. This was not the Kingsley that Harry and Neville knew from before. Something had changed since they last saw him. His eyes had lost that soft, paternal look behind them. It was almost as if they had frozen to glass in the time of his absence. Neville was quickly losing his patience
“Damn it, Kingsley!” he growled, his cheek still stinging. “If you don't believe me, just wait until the polyjuice wears off! Sooner or later you'll find out I'm not lying!” Just as Neville finished, the door burst open. The guard that had left returned with a vial of clear liquid clutched between his fingers. Shacklebolt quickly took the vial, uncorked it, and after taking hold of Neville's jaw, poured a small amount of the contents and rubbed his throat for him to swallow.
“Look at me!” Shacklebolt said. “Who am I?”
“Kingsley Shacklebolt,” Neville replied.
“And who are you?” he asked him.
“Neville – bloody – Longbottom!” Neville screamed. Shacklebolt's eyes went wide.
“A-and the one behind me?” he gasped, pointing behind his back.
“It's Harry! Harry Potter!” Shacklebolt then stood, withdrawing his wand.
“That's what I thought,” he said. He stood from his seat and walked forcefully to the door before throwing it open and calling out, “You were right, Lucius!”
To Neville's horror, Three figures walked through the door: Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and the Dark Lord himself. Voldemort strode into the room quite swiftly, his eyes beaming in a curious way.
“Kingsley!” Neville yelled, but he was greeted with a deep laugh that was quite colder than the one he was accustomed to. It was a laugh that seemed to solidify his betrayal.
“You didn't really think,” he said, “that you were the only man inside, did you?”
“Why?” Neville asked. Bellatrix let out an uproarious laugh.
“What, that's it?” She demanded. “No snide remark, no pithy comeback? Merlin, your father was much more interesting when he was captured.” Neville felt a surge of hatred flow toward her. That... thing... that destroyed his family. Kingsley let out one last chuckle before he stepped back to the Dark Lord's wake.
“Well,” Voldemort's horrible voice hissed as he approached the young wizard, “here I find I've caught myself a spy, I've captured Harry Potter and I'll have those lovely glasses of mine. It's like striking three muggles with one curse!”
The glasses! Neville thought. Judging by the look in Harry's eyes, he knew it, too. Neville took a deep breath.
“What makes you think we have those glasses?”
Every Death Eater in the room exchanged glances. The Dark Lord, however, never broke his gaze from Neville's eyes.
“You fooled me once, my boy,” He nearly whispered. “I can see that you indeed do not have them, but you know where they are.” Neville began to sweat uncontrollably. He could feel his features contorting to their original form as the potion's effect began to wane. Neville looked ahead to Harry, but his hair wasn't getting shorter, it was getting longer. Malfoy and Lestrange seemed to have noticed as well, for while they were keeping an eye on him, the look in their eyes were of unmistakable confusion.
“So how then,” Neville asked slowly, “are we all going to get what we want?”
“Well I don't know about what you want,” Bellatrix finally joined the conversation, “but I certainly know how to get things I want...” She finished with a twirl of her wand. Neville's eyes scanned the room again. The door had Kingsley and Malfoy blocking it, Voldemort was less than a meter in from of him, and Bellatrix Lestrange stood directly behind and had her eyes locked on—
Wait, that's not Harry. Neville's mind was torn in two. The polyjuice potion body of Severus Snape had not transformed into Harry Potter. The body had indeed shrunk in size, but far beyond that of a twenty-year-old man. In fact, it looked like that of a nineteen-year-old woman with flaming red hair falling just below her shoulders. The whole room seemed to have their eyes focused on the seat opposite Neville, as the final features of Ginny Weasley became visible.
“Well, it seems we have a small problem,” Voldemort hissed. He turned his head to the two Death Eaters at the door. “I want those glasses,” he said to the two. “Retrieve them for me. Lucius, Blaise, I have another job for you.” With that, he strode airily from the room, leaving Kingsley and Bellatrix along with them.
Kingsley swiftly stepped away from the door and grabbed Neville's collar, ringing away his gaze from Ginny.
“You said that was Potter!” he screamed lividly, shining Neville's face with spit. However, that was not on Neville's mind. The door now was unguarded, and the number of people holding their departure had been reduced to two. Most importantly, Voldemort was gone. If he was correct, the portkey would have returned to the room at the end of the hall. If he and Ginny could get to the portkey, they could get those glasses and maybe even go home. But for now, the veritaserum was still quite active in his bloodstream.
“I thought it was,” he said. Bellatrix snorted.
“Just as stupid as that father of yours,” she sneered acidly. “Let me guess, you were conceived after those useless parents of yours went bonkers!” She began to laugh almost hysterically as she stuck out her bottom lip, crossed her eyes and pantomimed a very obscene gesture right in Neville's face.
Within a second, Neville pulled his wand from his sleeve.
“Avada Kedavra!” Neville yelled. Bellatrix was taken completely off-guard, and the green jet of light hit her square in the chest.
With her fall to the floor, Neville heard a yell from Ginny's direction before something hot hit him in the shoulder. Fueled by his anger, Neville stood from his seat as Kingsley charged. With a swift slash of his wand, Shacklebolt found his feet flying up from under him. The air expelled from his lungs as his back hit the ground but as Neville kicked away his wand, his gasps for breath afterward fell deaf from a silencing charm from Ginny.
“I trusted you...” Neville said, pointing his wand at his face. But whispers soon turned to screams. “I TRUSTED YOU!” he repeated again and again. Screams turned to fists. Neville's fists landed on his cheek, his jaw, his nose, each blow seemingly flattening Kingsley's face more and more. But it wasn't enough. When he'd finished hitting him, Neville jumped up, his wand poised and aimed directly at Shacklebolt's heart.
“Neville, don't!” Ginny yelled.
“Why not?” Neville asked, his voice raised. “He's just like the other traitors. It's because of someone like him that Harry lost his parents, THAT I LOST MINE!” His anomalous breaths were now coming in sharp gasps. “I should just kill him right now.”
“Neville, please,” Ginny pleaded. “You know you don't want to do this. This just... isn't you!”
Neville finally broke his gaze from the battered form on the floor below him. Ginny stood before him with her hands near her mouth, her eyes already bloodshot from the tears. The adrenaline that had come so quickly had now gone just as fast. Neville was now, for the first time, fully aware that he had killed someone in the room and had nearly bludgeoned another to death with his own hands.
He looked down at Kingsley and, as if apologetically, cast a stunning charm on him, rendering him unconscious. He looked back at Ginny, who had inched closer in the previous minute. The tension in the room soon lifted as Neville tried to get a grip on things.
“Okay,” he said. “If we're in the room I think we are, then we're close to where I took the portkey. I don't know about you, but I've had a bad day and I really want to go home and go to bed.”
"Me too," Ginny mumbled as she followed Neville toward the door.
Just as he set his hand on the handle, he heard Ginny call his name from behind him. Neville turned around to find her very close. Without hesitation, Ginny took Neville's head in her hands and kissed him as hard as she could. As Neville's eyes went wide in surprise, Ginny broke the kiss and took him into a tight embrace.
“What was that for?” Neville asked.
“I just...” Ginny began, not letting go. “I wanted to know I did that. ...For me.” She looked up into Neville's eyes. The fear was evident, but so was the determination.
“I think we have a lot to talk about,” Neville said.
“Yeah,” Ginny breathed, tears running down her face. Neville shuffled his feet awkwardly.
“But one thing bothers me," he said. "Where'd you learn to speak parseltongue?” he asked her. “I thought for sure you were Harry when you were talking to that snake.”
Ginny gave Neville a drained sort of smile before replying “You remember when Flint poisoned me? And how Harry gave his blood for the antidote?" Neville still looked confused. "I guess when you really care about someone, you give them more than you think you do.” Neville sighed, and looked back into her eyes.
“Maybe,” Neville began, “we should talk about this when we get home.”
“Okay,” Ginny sniffled. She sniffed in once more and stopped the few tears left in her eyes from falling, then wiped her eyes.
“You ready?” Neville asked. Ginny nodded. “Okay. One... Two... Three.”
Neville and Ginny had the best night's sleep of their lives.