The year came to an end, and the Hawthorne family, Harry, and Sirius were celebrating at the Hawthorne mansion. A banquet was being prepared by Nibbin, Kreacher, and Dobby.
Kreacher had warmed up to Harry during the time Harry had spent in the Black house, and Dobby had a salary, since he worked for the House of Black.
As the feast was being prepared, the Greengrass family also arrived and were welcomed. Ignatius and Selene thanked Aaric as soon as they arrived for all he had done for their family.
Ignatius and Selene had gotten the whole story from Daphne after she returned home during the Christmas holidays. They had wanted to scold her for her recklessness and be angry at her, but in the end they only sighed and hugged her.
Daphne, Harry, Astoria, and Aaric floated around in the dementor cloaks throughout the night, having fun while the parents watched them and chatted at the side.
"Could you procure more of the Kailash roots for us? The potioneers are demanding it a lot after the last batch," Ignatius asked Simon, who seemed lost in thought.
"Simon?" Ignatius repeated, shaking Simon's shoulder.
"Uh… yes, forgive me," Simon said, brought out of his musings. He looked at Ignatius apologetically.
Before Ignatius could ask what was wrong, Aaric floated above Simon and dropped a hat on his head. Simon looked at Aaric and removed the hat; it had "World's Coolest Dad" written on it. The message brought a smile to Simon's face.
Aaric floated away with a grin and started pestering Harry. "I can fly," he said, waving his hands like wings. "And I don't need to sit on a stick," he added, pointing and laughing at Harry.
Harry ignored Aaric and pretended to be a sage as he sat midair in a meditative posture. "Children," he said, shaking his head. "Your words don't hurt me," he told Aaric, who just shrugged.
They ate, laughed, and enjoyed themselves for the night.
The next day, Daphne and Aaric were in St. Mungo's, walking toward the Janus Thickey Ward on the fourth floor.
"They agreed in a heartbeat when I showed them the letter from Aunt Edwina," Daphne said in surprise.
Aaric lifted his chin. "Stay with me and you'll go far in the world," he said arrogantly to Daphne, who rolled her eyes. They used the key given by the receptionist to open the door and enter the ward.
They found a reception area with couches and several doors leading to patient rooms. Two people sat on the couches: Frank and Alice Longbottom.
Frank stared out the window and jerked to look at the door when Daphne and Aaric entered. He raised an imaginary wand when he saw them, then slowly put his hand down and returned to staring out the window.
Alice did not react; she only smiled a hollow smile, her eyes unfocused as she looked around.
"They're Neville's parents… they were—" Aaric breathed.
Daphne held his hand. "I know," she said softly.
She approached Alice first and put a hand on her shoulder. Alice leaned into the touch with the same hollow smile. Daphne smiled at her and handed her a potion; Alice looked at it and drank it in one gulp.
Daphne had been told they would take food and potions without complaint, and she found she had not been misinformed.
After Alice drank, Daphne whispered to her, "Who are you?" and then moved on to Frank, doing the same—offering the draught, watching him swallow it.
She stood beside Aaric and bit her lip, a little nervous. "We should see some progress in about a week."
Aaric gave her a smile and assured her, "It will work," nodding once.
She smiled. "I will come back from time to time to give them Draught of Peace and other potions."
Alice and Frank Longbottom had retreated inward as a survival mechanism after they were tortured for a long time by Barty and Bellatrix. Their minds had split away from the world to keep something of themselves intact.
Frank existed primarily in survival mode: he waved imaginary wands, stood guard in his dreams, and reacted to threats no one else could see.
Alice, by contrast, was trapped in a looping, maternal shell—comforting her son with the same hollow phrases, assuring him everything would be all right because that fragment of the past still knew how to reassure.
They both retained basic functions—feeding, sleeping, following simple instructions—but there was a barrier between them and the external world. The past haunted their nights. When they slept and the memories returned, the world around them faded away and the old terror came back as if no time had passed.
One night, as Alice sat smiling into the air, comfortingly cooing to an imaginary Neville, she heard something soft, a whisper threading through the dream. At first she could not place it. The sound came again, clearer this time:
"Who are you?"
The voice echoed in her head, a slow insistent question, and it repeated—over and over, steady and patient, pressing at the edges of her fog.
"I am… fine… it will be fine," she muttered in her dream, the words half-lucid, half-automatic, an attempt to soothe that phantom child in her arms.
Beside her, Frank stood in the ruin of his dream—wand raised, posture rigid, defending a family that might not exist anymore. The Death Eaters closed in like a remembered storm. Then that same whisper found him.
"Who are you?"
He did not answer at first; his mind was busy rehearsing the movement of defence, replaying the instinctual sequences that had saved them in the past. But the question persisted, tugging at the corners of a memory he had long kept sealed.
A small, ragged thought surfaced in Frank's dream: "I… am… I… am—" and he reached for the words as if they were objects he could gather and hold.
The whispering did not stop; it kept asking, again and again. It was awkward and intrusive, but it was also a lever—a way to pry open the sealed parts of memory and pull identity back into place. Each repetition tugged at something inside them until fragments of response began to climb back out of the darkness.