Chapter 635: Sweet Wrappers
Neville Longbottom was a young wizard whose palms were perpetually sweaty.
If anyone ever shook his hand, they would find it consistently damp, cold, and slightly trembling.
This, of course, wasn't something he was born with, but something that began before he could even speak.
Since he was little, he never understood why his Gran always sighed, why he was constantly plagued by nightmares, why everyone looked at him with a mix of pity and resentful expectation.
"You don't deserve the name Longbottom," they would say.
This voice had echoed many times. Sometimes it was his Gran's harsh scolding, sometimes it was Professor Snape's cold sneer, sometimes it was the deepest, darkest thought within his own heart.
The first time he successfully cast a spell, he shot himself up to the ceiling. As he fell and lay on the ground, he thought:
That's more like it. That's me. Battered and bruised, that's who I am.
It was then he understood that the meaning of the word Longbottom was to be beneath something.
Or rather, his hopes were forever buried beneath disappointment.
In the vast white mist, Neville looked even more dazed than usual. He timidly reached out a hand, his fingers a mere inch from the black cat's furry head, only to immediately want to pull it back.
What was he doing?
This was far too bold!
The Castle Spirit Cat would surely be angry, wouldn't it—
Without a doubt, the palm of his clenched left hand was sweating again.
But dreams are perhaps simply this bizarre; their progression completely defies reality.
The black cat was initially startled, then somewhat helplessly, it slowly shook its head.
Neville felt as if a ball of yarn had brushed against the palm of his right hand, and only one voice remained in his head:
I touched it...
Good fortune.
"Mr. Longbottom."
Good fortune is speaking...
"Someone is waiting for you. Please follow me."
Good fortune's voice is childish, but feels like a warm hearth in winter...
"Mr. Longbottom—"
Look, it's angry...
"Here!"
The plump young wizard stood at attention.
"We have a long way to go."
The black cat leapt onto his shoulder, its tail slowly curling up, pointing toward the hazy depths.
"N-no problem," Neville stammered.
This journey was far longer than he had imagined.
He walked for who knows how long.
Perhaps a few seconds, perhaps a few years. Here, eternity and an instant were one and the same.
His eyes were fixed only on the black cat's tail; it was like a banner, guiding his path.
However, just as they reached a wheat field, the black cat suddenly jumped from his left shoulder to the ground, its tail drooping limply.
It carefully swept its gaze over the golden wheat field. Neville thought it must be feeling sorrowful.
Because its tail was no longer twitching gently.
The black cat had, for once, lost its sense of direction in the Limbo, or rather, The Lands Between.
It stood in the middle of the wheat field, pondering the reason.
Perhaps it was quite simple.
The souls of the Longbottoms were never a certainty to begin with.
After enduring an hour-long Cruciatus Curse, fragmented remnants of the wizards' broken souls were locked within their still-breathing bodies, maintaining the bare minimum of life; while the core, the most emotional and memory-rich essence of their souls, unable to bear the agony, was stripped away and banished during the continuous torment, ultimately sinking into the boundary between life and death—the Limbo.
Therefore, the wizards' souls were no longer a complete whole.
The reason the black cat could make this bold conjecture might also be attributed to Tom.
He had made the black cat understand that a wizard's soul could be split under extreme circumstances.
Thus, the vague sensation, existing both outside and inside The Lands Between, confirmed the black cat's theory.
It was correct; it could indeed find the Longbottoms in The Lands Between, and specifically the parts that still retained their deep emotions and wisdom.
But on the flip side, it made them much harder to find.
The black cat already had very little connection with them; even the thread connecting them was as thin as a cicada's wing.
Fortunately—
"Choose a direction, Mr. Longbottom," the black cat said.
"What?" Neville thought he had misheard.
"You must walk this stretch of the journey yourself," the black cat said.
It looked toward The Lands Between.
The vast white mist had already begun to churn. Far, far away, black and red mists were closing in like storm clouds.
"But you will not be alone, Mr. Longbottom. In the eternal Lands Between, there exists something eternal that will guide you."
The black cat strolled away, deep into the white mist.
"Where are you going... but I... I can't do it..."
Neville immediately panicked. He stammered, his fists subconsciously clenching in tension.
"You can do it, Mr. Longbottom."
The black cat's tone was so resolute that Neville was actually left in a momentary daze.
"But I..."
Neville was on the verge of anxious tears.
However, with a couple of leaps, the black cat vanished.
Neville swallowed hard, looking at the blurry wheat field shrouded in mist.
Nothing here seemed certain.
It was like a poorly constructed dream, a stage with only a set and no plot. A waiting room, an eternal transit station where the signpost had been removed.
"Is anyone there?"
His voice was muffled.
The mist absorbed everything; even his own words barely made it back to his ears.
He hesitated for a moment, then began to walk.
Once again, Neville didn't know how long he walked.
Here, time had lost all reference—no sun to shift, no shadows to lengthen, no hunger, no exhaustion.
Only walking.
Only the sensation of muscles repeatedly contracting and extending, only the hollow echoes of his feet stepping on invisible ground.
The hem of his robes brushed against his calves. Each friction felt like a reminder: You are still solid. You haven't turned into something like mist.
But this certainty was being eroded bit by bit.
Neville wanted to leave this place; he began to pray this was just a dream.
His palms started sweating again.
Loneliness, silence, erosion.
Neville felt this absolutely had to be a nightmare.
Just like every nightmare he had ever had.
But right at this moment, a violent noise erupted in the distance, and the mist beneath his feet shuddered in response.
He was thrown high into the air, then crashed painfully to the ground.
His leg was scraped, the flesh torn and bloody; an intense pain flared in his arm—it was likely broken.
His already small eyes squinted tightly in agony, leaving only a slit.
The pain caused sweat to drip, soaking his eyelids, making his pupils sting even more.
"Mr. Castle Spirit Cat, are you there..." he called out weakly.
Just then, on the ground where the white dust swirled, he saw it... a flower.
A sparkling, brightly coloured flower.
A flower that Neville recognized—made from sweet wrappers.