Time Travel? Really!

One Christmas miracle coming up

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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Neville Longbottom was crying. Scratch that, he was sobbing. His hands were covering his eyes and he was crouched on the floor where his legs had given up on him. In the back of his mind he could hear the familiar voice of his grandmother scolding him on his behaviour, telling him to straighten up and how he was ruining the image of the House of Longbottom.

He really couldn't care less.

His entire world had just been turned around and he didn't know what to feel. Happy, sad, confused … His mind was a complete and utter mess. Everything had just changed within the space of less than an hour and his emotions were all over the place. His grandmother Augusta had always reminded him to present himself in a poised and collected fashion, but his thoughts were entirely too erratic to properly consider the situation and act accordingly.

Besides, considering the usually severe woman was in a similar state to him right now, he thought putting forward a regal view of the House of Longbottom wasn't all that important at the present time. Tears were falling down her face as she sat in a chair crying silently at the two confused faces in front of them, who were worriedly trying to understand what was wrong with their family.

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The two Longbottoms had been rather subdued as they left for their yearly Christmas visit to St Mungo's, not knowing exactly how they should feel this time. It was the first year that they would visit knowing that the monsters responsible for Frank and Alice's condition were dead and gone, unable to hurt anyone else ever again. The problem was that their victims were still in the hospital; Frank and Alice were still sat in their ward, completely unaware of the fact that their attackers had finally been dealt with and that they'd been avenged.

Augusta and Neville could sit in front of them and explain everything that had happened to the Lestranges until they were blue in the face, but their family still wouldn't register anything. They were irrevocably trapped; trapped in the hospital, trapped in their own minds, and any justice from the Lestrange deaths wasn't going to change this fact.

No matter how satisfying it was to know that the vermin responsible for tearing their family apart were dead and gone, it didn't erase what they'd done in the slightest. Their vindication was tainted with bitter sadness, knowing that their justice didn't magically fix anything. Frank and Alice were still in the hospital, and the two other Longbottoms had to contend themselves with a relationship created through loss and tragedy.

Augusta and Neville's relationship had always been categorised by Augusta's over-protectiveness. Having her son and his wife attacked in such a manner had caused her to be overbearing to the extreme with Neville, which had methodically destroyed any self-esteem the child had. After Amelia had lit into her over the summer she had taken a step back and realised what she'd been doing to her grandson.

She'd never been more ashamed of herself.

Neville had been thankful when she apologised though, and the two began mending their relationship over the summer, enough so that by the time he went to Hogwarts she had been extremely proud of his Herbology knowledge and made sure to tell him. The knowledge that she was praising him for something that he was uniquely good at had made him ecstatic, especially when she'd told him that his parents hadn't been all that good at the subject.