ORDER ONLY: Private Message to Minerva McGonagall and Arthur Weasley

first off, the camping trip is going fine. no sign of magic from kevin, everyone’s getting on, and the change-off with kingsley and emmaline went off without a hitch.

neville told us something today.

I’m not good with words. but I can put down what he said, or near enough.

he said that he wants to know everything about what we do. he wants to ask us questions, and to have us be able to tell him the answers truthfully. he wants to talk to us. really talk to us. and then he wants us to obliviate him. because it’d be safest that way.

all he ever hears about are the rumours and the bad things, the things we’re accused of doing, and all we can ever tell him are that the bad things aren’t true, but there’s nothing to take their place. and so he’s left wondering and being afraid and worrying, and it’s keeping him up nights not knowing. he said it was eating away at him.

he's prepared to have us obliviate him, minerva.

you know we wouldn’t do something like this without checking in first. so this is me. checking in.

ORDER ONLY

I need to talk to you lot about something. someone. my son. neville.

we started writing neville the summer before his second year. we've spent three weeks and a handful of hours here and there with him since we left him with his gran. during the interactions we’ve had with him, we’ve given him our advice about school, we’ve talked to him some about our past, but we’ve kept quiet about everything else. when we write, we don’t use our names, or his. I have to watch every word I say around my kids, because what we can’t talk about is what we do every single day, what we’ve done every single day for the last fifteen years, the people and the places and the work we’ve done and all of it.

everything we’ve done with them has been careful. we ask permission. we wait. we keep our secrets, even when it’s just me and him in the middle of nowhere and there’s no-one around keeping an eye on things. even when he’s kept all the other secrets we’ve ever given him. it’s been hard, no mistake. but we’ve done it. because I’d rather talk about the fucking weather with my kids than not talk to them at all.

sorry hermione. sorry terry.

my son, without knowing what exactly it is we do, asked us last year if he could be a part of it someday. my son was crushed when he wasn’t selected for the damned CCF because he thought it’d make him more useful for us. and the reason he wasn’t in it was because he deliberately sabatoged his chances when he found out there was going to be a boggart. because his biggest fear was that he’d make a mistake and betray us, and he couldn’t let anyone see how he felt about us. he's been studying occlumency with snape since january. hermione, I’m not sure what he says to you in private, but I know that when it comes to the rest of the juniors, he keeps quiet about taking occlumency lessons, about his portkey, and about writing us. and every one of you who’s worked with him at Hogwarts knows how careful he is.

my son came up to us today and told us what he wanted for his birthday.

he told us that he only ever heard about us through other people’s stories and rumours and news, that it was all he had. that the giant hole we’d left in our conversations with him, the one that gives us such a hard time, that it’s much harder for him because all he’s got to fill it with are his own fears and other people’s lies. that it kept him up nights thinking and worrying. and my son told me that what he wanted more than anything was for us to tell him the truth, to sit down and talk to him and be open with him for the first time in his life, and then, he looked us in the eye and said that he wanted us to obliviate him after because that way we’d still be safe. he'd been thinking about it for almost a year. he figured it was better to know, even if it was just for an hour or two.

so we did what we always do. we got permission. and then once we did, we started talking to him. everything we could think of. and then we got snape to bring along terry boot, and we all talked to him for a good two hours, and it was the best goddamn two hours of my life.

we told him why we left him and his sister behind. why we thought it was worth the cost. what we were hoping to do. what he could be a part of someday. he saw that terry was safe and happy, and heard from him about what life was like at moddey dhoo, the place that we built up from a ruin and made into a sanctuary with two wands and years of hard work, where we have almost every muggle born child who has been born on this island in the last six years and counting. he nearly broke down when he found out kevin wasn’t really a squib. got really quiet when we were telling him about the garden and hannah’s tree too.

and then, when all was said and done, he asked me if he could write himself a note. a four word code he’d come up with to write down on a scrap of paper he could keep so he'd know that what he’d asked for had happened. that he’d been told, and been obliviated. that way, he’d know it had already taken place, so he wouldn’t keep asking for it, and he’d know that it was done of his own free will. and even then, he said that he understood if we didn’t want him to do it. he was willing to give that shred of reassurance up just so we could keep our security.

and then snape obliviated him for us, because al was too afraid she’d make a mistake and I was too chicken shit to do it myself, and he took terry back before neville came out of it. and now we have to go back to being careful again.

he might not legally be of age, but he’s handled himself like a man today, and he has for a good long while.

last time we met, we tabled talk of bringing him in. I’d like to reopen that conversation because I damn well think he deserves at least that. and severus, man, thank you. thanks for what you did and what you said to him before you did it. he might not remember, but I will.