Two Months Earlier
Neville Longbottom hadn't been home for days.
He was not surprised to hear from the guards that his family hadn't sent him letters. Not even his Gran.
He imagined that she had reacted to the news of what he had done either one of two ways. Either hopping up and down in pure rage or wrestling with pride at how he'd finally proved himself the ideal Gryffindor. Brave and stupid.
But whether she was swimming with pride or beside herself with fury, she wouldn't send any letters either way. Affection wasn't a part of her nature.
He was currently being escorted to his trial in the Ministry of Magic. For the crime of attempting to kill Severus Snape.
But he wasn't worried. Once upon a time the seats among the Winzengamot were filled with the most pompous, balding old Pure-Bloods who would have been all too happy to send him to the Dementors. His only saving grace would have been the fact that he was Pure-Blooded.
But the Winzengamot had been purged since Scrimgeor became Minister. It was due to this purge that Y/N had been freed from Azkaban a year ago. The Winzengamot was now younger, no longer dead set in the ways of old.
Neville wouldn't be punished. Not for trying to kill a Death Eater.
Neville was ushered to a waiting room lined with velvet carpeting and depressingly bland stone walls lit by candles.
The double-doors leading to the courtroom opened and who else but the Minister's second in command stood there to greet him.
"Good to see you, Neville." said Y/N L/N.
* * *
"I gotta say," said Neville, stirring two spoonfuls of sugar into his tea. "That was a lot simpler than I thought It'd be."
The trial was over. As expected, Neville was scott-free.
He sat opposite his friend at a Muggle coffee shop not far from one of the Ministry of Magic's secret entrances. Neville could never get used to the — noise of the Muggle world. It wasn't just the rushing of cars. When there were just so many people, everything, even the footsteps of children, felt deafening.
Observing his friend, Y/N clearly hadn't shaved in a while. His trenchcoat was shabby and his eyes tired. Not a total deviation from how he had looked the previous year, but upon his reunion with Hermione at Hogwarts, he had just started to make effort again to look presentable. Now, with no girlfriend around to baby him he had deviated right back to messy Remus-Lupin knock-off.
"Are you incapable of keeping yourself presentable if Hermione isn't around?" Neville asked, humor in his tone.
Y/N raised an eyebrow, taking a sip of his coffee. "Don't pretend you've grown all that much." He fired back eventually. "Need any more sugar with that tea?"
Neville dropped the teaspoon, realizing he was subconsciously shoving a third sugar into his tea. He scowled. "Something wrong with liking my tea sweet?"
"Nothing at all." Said Y/N, the ghost of a smile forming at the corner of his lips. "Just comforting knowing you'll always be the same Neville at heart. No matter how tough you try and act."
Neville grumbled, casting aside his spoon and taking a sip from his tea. After a short moment of silence between the two he spoke once more.
"Your staff was broken last year, wasn't it?" Said Neville, eyeing Y/Ns apparent lack of magical weaponry. "Got a new wand hidden up your sleeve or —?"
Y/N also took a sip from his mug. "I haven't really used magic all too much since our fight with the Death Eaters in Hogwarts last year." He said quietly. "Just a few small spells here and there when they're really needed."
"How? If you've got no wand then—"
Y/N interrupted him by snapping his fingers. Instantly his coffee froze over until all that remained was unappetizing brown ice.
Neville stared.
With another snap of his fingers the coffee melted, reverting back to a liquid. The steam rising from the cup indicated the coffee was hot again.
"Wandless magic." Neville breathed. "I always knew you were capable of it... Hell I've even seen you use it sometimes but that's always been during the heat of battle. You can do it willingly now? Outside of combat?"
Y/N grimaced. "Somewhat." He answered. "Small-scale spells are easy. You know, the stuff we learned at Hogwarts during our first year. I can maybe get away with a few second year spells but it takes a lot of energy."
"And L/N's Fire?" Neville enquired. "I know you can conjure it wandlessly but — has this newfound wandless skill improved your... mastery of it?"
Y/N stared off into space for a moment. "I haven't really tested it." He said eventually.
"This is exciting." Breathed Neville. "Your wandless magic is good enough for you to be without a physical wand for... how long's it been since the battle at Hogwarts?"
"Around a month." Said Y/N.
"Fast progress." Neville grinned.
"Don't get your hopes up." Warned Y/N. "This... newfound skill isn't why I stopped using a wand. Or a staff for that matter."
"Why then?" Said Neville.
Y/N pinched his nose. "I guess I'm just sick of magic."
Neville was stunned.
"Sick of magic?" He repeated, flabbergasted. Was there even such a thing?
Y/N stared at Neville for a moment, before downing his still-hot coffee in a single gulp. "Come with me."
* * *
They both apparated to Diagon Alley. Neville took in the bleak, empty stand-ins for what were once some of the most colorful and whimsical shops he'd known in his childhood. To see all the boarded up windows, bolted-shut doors, and shady street vendors left a vile churn in his stomach.
He followed Y/N down the street, past Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and Knockturn Alley. Finally, they reached what appeared to be just another broken-down shop, long since abandoned after Voldemort's return.
"This was the shop of a friend of mine." Said Y/N. "Business was going well after I sold him the rights of my portable Portkeys. Shame Voldy popped up when he did. This shop really could've gone somewhere."
The door was boarded up, but a single kick from Y/N sent it crumbling to the ground. As they walked into the shop, Y/N jerked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the door he'd just broken.
"Fix that for me, won't you?" He said. "Got no wand, and all."
Somehow Neville felt as though Y/N could have mended if just fine. But he pointed his wand to the door nonetheless and whispered. "Reparo."
The broken pieces of the door reassembled themselves. Wooden planks boarding it and all.
"Such an underrated spell, that one." Said Y/N, leading them further into the shop. "It doesn't just fix things, you know. "It erases all remnants of the person who broke the object in question. It's kind of like an obliviate but for tangible objects rather than memories. Our own miniature time-travel spell."
"I'm noticing a pattern with wizardkind underestimating magic," mumbled Neville. "And you exposing them for it."
Y/N smiled an ugly smile. "Yeah well, unlike last time, the Death Eaters aren't gonna learn this little trick."
Y/N led them past the shopkeeper's counter into a room at the back, draped by a curtained door. Neville blinked upon seeing what was inside.
Briefcases. Shelves upon shelves of briefcases. They almost covered all four walls of the room.
A closer inspection revealed that they were also all the same model. There was not an ounce of difference between them. Looking up, the ceiling of the room also seemed to have been magically extended. Two ladders followed the briefcases into the almost-disappearing ceiling.
"Any idea what I'm hiding here, Neville?" said Y/N softly.
Neville tore his eyes away from the headache-inducing display, and back to his friend. "Among these briefcases, one of them is probably magically extended, right?"
Y/N wordlessly signaled for him to keep going.
"And seeing as briefcases can be extended to up to a mansion's worth of people, I'm, assuming that in one of these suitcases, are the prisoners that escaped Azkaban two weeks ago."
Y/N smiled. A genuine smile that Neville hadn't seen in ages.
"A lot smarter than any of our Hogwarts professors ever gave you credit for, Neville."
"I had you and Hermione as good influences," Neville replied.
"But you did get one thing wrong." Y/N continued. "Somewhere among these thousands of suitcases is one magically extended suitcase, yes, but this suitcase isn't holding those prisoners. It's holding another room of suitcases."
It took a moment for his words to register.
"Huh?"
"That's right."
"And inside one of those suitcases are the escaped prisoners?" Neville said hopefully.
"Nope." Y/N said, popping the 'p'. "There's -"
"Another room of suitcases," said Neville blandly.
Y/N was grinning now. A full-on asshole grin that he always used to grin before the deaths of his family.
Neville rolled his eyes. "And how far exactly does this room of rooms go?"
Y/N shrugged. "You lose count after the first fifty levels or so."
"Fifty!" Neville gasped. "I was expecting ten at most!"
"I had a big team."
"Clearly!" said Neville. He took a breath and sighed. "Don't tell me we're now going to descend into fifty suitcases just so you can show me whatever it is you want to show me."
"No, you dolt," said Y/N, staring at Neville as though he were the crazy one. "We're gonna Apparate."
Neville was stumped. "But - " he said confusedly. "Doesn't that make the whole system completely useless? What if a Death Eater or Ministry official finds out how to Apparate there?"
Y/N took a few moments to relish in Neville's face of sheer confusion before answering. "Every night the last suitcase in the chain creates another room of suitcases, transporting everything in the finalmost room down a level below it. The room is constantly shifting, and thus it's very hard to apparate there. Any Death Eater who tries will simply end up in one of the endless room of rooms."
"In which case an alarm will trigger?" Neville guessed.
"And we'll all be long gone before they can get to us manually." Y/N nodded.
"But if it's so hard to Apparate there," said Neville. "How are we going to do it?"
"Ah," said Y/N smartly. "Traditional Apparition is done by imagining exactly where you want to go, which is why it's almost fatally unsafe to try and Apparate somewhere you've never physically been before, or at least seen with your own eyes.
"But with our suitcase method, any enemy who - let's say gets taken prisoner by us and manages to Apparate to make his or her escape, now knows what our secret hideout looks like, but still doesn't know that our hideout is hidden within a room of rooms, which is why they'll just end up in the last room the image of the hideout they know of happened to be."
"Which will by then become just another room full of suitcases." Neville nodded. "So why does Apparating work for us?"
"Because we are aware of how the system works," said Y/N. "We know that it's not the same destination that we're trying to get to, but rather a different destination that just so happens to look exactly the same. Armed with that knowledge, Apparition works every time."
"Okay I get that, but what if the enemy somehow finds out about the room-of-rooms strategy?"
"They can't," said Y/N simply. "Because I'm the secret keeper of the hideout. No one, not even you, can openly talk about the location of the hideout, or in this case, how the hideout is being hidden."
"But - I've been talking about it all this time!"
"Only I'm the only one you're talking to about it. And seeing as I'm the secret keeper, we can speak freely."
"And what if -"
"There was someone else listening to our conversation? Then the Fidelius Charm would kick in. You'd be tongue-tied, and I'd immediately know that someone was eavesdropping on us."
Neville gaped. "Blimey."
"Indeed."
"You've really thought this through."
"I had help."
"By who?" inquired Neville.
"Want to meet them?"
* * *
After the signature pop of Apparition let him know they had reached their destination, Neville let go of Y/N's trenchcoat.
They seemed to have appeared in what could only be described as some sort of boot camp, but indoors. The entire room was as large as Hogwarts' own Great Hall but with none of its warmth or homeliness. Instead, the walls were dull and grey, each corner of the room dedicated to some sort of arbitrary physical activity.
It was unlike anything Neville had ever seen before. His Grandmother, upon a visit to the Ministry of Magic once when he was nine, had shown him the Aurors Deaprtment there. They too, went through training but they were always dressed in the smartest of robes, shooting spells precisely and elegantly at training dummies.
It was very different here. He'd seen Muggle clothes before of course, but the people here wore clothes covered in dirt, trousers that seemed much too baggy, and t-shirts that seemed much too tight.
In one corner a group of people were practicing some sort of bizarre carrying activity, in which one person was slung over another's shoulders like a bag of rice, the former running as fast as physically possible down a track, huffing and puffing under the burden of their friend.
In a second corner, people were scrambling on the floor, a net strung much too low upon the ground and above their bodies, desperate not to get caught in it.
In another corner people seemed to be repeatedly hopping in and out of strange rubber rings. Upon closer inspection they seemed to be the very same rubber rings found on Muggle cars.
In another corner were ten men and women, each holding what Neville immediately recognized as a gun, though much longer and thinner than the one Y/N had used at Hogwarts. These machines needed two hands to hold, and were each being fired at what Neville now realized was a firing range, targets hung across the walls in the shape of human beings, no too dissimilar from the training dummies that aurors tended to use.
One of the men fired his gun and Neville braced himself for the horrible sound that would accompany it - but it never came.
"That area has been magically silenced," Y/N told him. "The noise complaints were just too much."
And he was right. Neville had been so distracted by all the foreign Muggle aspects of the room that he had subconsciously ignored all the magical elements too. Not only were people training with guns, but there was another area where supposedly Muggle-born witches and wizards were practicing magical dueling, but with their wands taped at the end of the long guns he'd seen earlier. People also were drinking from water bottles that replenished themselves. There were many large black-and-white photographs placed upon the walls that moved and talked, each of which portraying beefy Muggle men with rather strong moustaches and massive shoulders, barking orders at the people training below them.
"The portraits are of Muggle war generals and commanders from the first and second world war." Y/N explained."We enchanted them to behave exactly like their real-life counterparts did. They're in charge of training the cadets."
Neville winced as one of the war generals from a particularly dingy looking portrait and a prickly looking stubble, yelled something offensive at one of the cadets. The portrait was immediately met with a bright streak of red light to the face.
"OOOF!" yelped the general.
"We like to give them a light slap on the wrist whenever they say something... particularly out-of-date." said Y/N.
The one who had punished the portrait was a woman older than Neville and Y/N by around four or five years. She had black hair and a hard, stern face not too unlike Professor McGonagall's. Upon seeing them she rushed over, calling for attention to the rest of the cadets.
In unison, every single person present stopped what they were doing and hurried on over, forming two straight lines on either side of them, forming a corridor of people.
They made a striking formation indeed, especially with their matching clothes — baggy green trousers and beige T-shirts.
"Mr L/N, sir!" They all greeted respectfully. "Mr Longbottom, sir!"
Neville was rather taken back at being spoken to with such respect, particularly as there didn't seem to be anyone besides Y/N present who wasn't at least three years older than him.
"At ease, gentlemen," said Y/N. "And gentlewomen." He added upon the older black-haired woman's 'ahem'.
Something told Neville that this was something of a running inside joke here. Especially as the women seemed to outnumber the men by a wide margin.
"Neville," said Y/N, gesturing to the woman. "This is Kassandra. My trusty number two. Well — three, now that you're here."
"What?" Spluttered Kassandra indignantly.
"Joking." Said Y/N simply.
"Ah, has our guest arrived?" Came another voice, making their way to their side.
The newcomer was a much older man. He had planitum white hair and round glasses obstructing very warm brown eyes. He was around a head taller than Neville and Y/N, and reminded Neville a lot of Remus Lupin.
"And this is Wilbert," Y/N introduced. "My other number two."
Neville took another look at the man. While he was tall, he didn't look very physically imposing like Kassandra, nor did he dress like the others. He most definitely wasn't a soldier.
"He's our primary weapons manufacturer." Y/N continued. "All of our magical grenades, deluminators and portkeys are courtesy of him —"
"Y/N." Neville interrupted. "What exactly is this place?"
Y/N was silent for a moment. "Well..." he said eventually. "Harry's got himself an army, hasn't he?"
Neville scoffed. "Dumbledore's army and this army are two very different things. One of them is real, for one." Neville gestured to the cadets. "They're all actual soldiers."
"Not yet, they're not." Grumbled one of the general portraits. "Got a lot more practice before L/N should even consider letting them on the field."
"Mr Longbottom," said Kassandra. "We are the Mortalitas Assembly. And yes, we are Y/N L/N's army."
Neville took a breath. "An army for what?"
"For now?" Said Y/N. "To kill Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But once that's done...?"
Y/N trailed off. His eyes gazing into an uncertain future. His facade of friendliness dropped, and for a moment Neville saw the man Y/N had been last year. The vengeful, unstoppable mercenary.
Neville knew Y/N's end goal. No one had to say it out loud. But he already knew what choice he wanted to make. Really, he had already made it the day he ran his Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, and the condemner of his parents through with a sword.
* * *
Training was difficult. Y/N, Kassandra and Wilbert had all come to the same conclusion that Neville wouldn't be given a gun the same as the other cadets. He was the only Pure-Blood among them, and it was very different teaching someone like him the ins-and-outs of Muggle weaponry. Instead, Y/N had retreated into his private quarters one day, and came back out with a glistening silver sword.
"I want you to have this." He told him, presenting to his friend the sword of Godric Griffindor.
Neville was dumbstruck. "I - I can't."
"Why not?"
"It's your weapon. Always has been. You've been able to summon it since you were fourteen..."
"Don't give me that." Said Y/N sharply. "You can summon it as well. You're just as worthy."
"That was only one time..."
"Neville." Said Y/N. "According to all the legends and transcripts, only one person should be able to wield Gryffindor's sword. Only one person should be able to summon it the way we do. Only one of us is Gryffindor's champion.
"And I believe that person is you."
Neville was stumped. And even a little angry.
"Don't just —!" he seethed. "How could it possibly be me?! I summoned it later than you did! I've only done it once! I've never even killed anything with it like you have! The one time I ever summoned it I still failed to kill Snape!"
"My blood makes me more powerful than an average wizard." Said Y/N simply. "The only reason I can summon it is because the sword has been tricked by my magical energy into thinking I'm a champion worthy of Griffindor.
"You, Neville, have no such boon, and yet the sword still answers your call. Gryfdindor's champion can only be you."
"That's not — I can't —"
Y/N took a few steps back and held out the sword. "Go on. Call it."
"Y/N I can't —"
"Call it, Neville."
Neville pursed his lips. Feeling foolish, he held out his hand and squeezed his eyes shut, pouring every ounce of his will into the single thought.
Come to me.
And with a metallic echo, the sword obliged.