Harry Potter: Glory Bows to Me

One of Neville's hands was still on the door frame, and Harry was holding the other hand tightly.

"Harry, are we really going in?" His voice was trembling, not because of the cold, but out of instinctive fear. "This strange door doesn't look like a good thing... Should we go back and tell them first and discuss it..."

"Don't be so timid." Harry turned around and grinned at him. "Since we're planning to explore the way first, we must go in and take a look."

"and many more--"

Before Neville could let go, he was pulled in.

It felt like my feet were stepping into empty space.

In an instant, there was a blast like a blast in the eardrums, followed by a dead silence. The sense of gravity he was standing on disappeared, and Harry's breath suddenly faded away beside him.

There is endless white all around.

It was a blinding, blazing white, almost blinding, as if the entire world had been bleached white, stripped of all color, sound, and touch.

He instinctively raised his arms to shield his eyes.

then--

The white light faded away inch by inch, like a thick curtain slowly being lifted, and the surrounding scene began to fill the blank space.

St. Mungo's Hospital for Wizarding Worlds, fifth floor, long-term closed ward.

The bed, so familiar it gave him nightmares, sat by the nearby window. Sunlight streamed down quietly, illuminating the bed. Lying on it lay a woman, her face pale and her hair tangled. She stared at the ceiling, mumbling something softly.

Neville's heart tightened.

"……mom?"

He blurted out, his voice so hoarse it almost didn't sound like his own.

He walked closer, step by step, as if stepping into some unfathomable quagmire. He knew it might not be real, but his legs betrayed his brain and he couldn't help but want to get closer.

The woman's gaze finally dropped.

She looked at him with a blank, empty look in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth twitched slightly before she broke into an overly large, unnatural smile.

"You're..." she whispered, repeating it like an echo, "You're... You're his child, right? That Death Eater... bastard..."

"...Mom? You don't recognize me? I'm Neville, I'm your son..." His voice became lower and lower, and his throat felt like it had swallowed broken glass.

"Get away! Don't touch me!" She suddenly let out a sharp scream, and suddenly sat up from the bed, picked up the kettle on the bedside and threw it out -

The kettle fell at Neville's feet, fragments flying everywhere, but he didn't move, just staring at the crazy woman in front of him.

She grabbed the candlesticks and medicine bottles beside the bed and smashed them around like she was possessed, screaming as she did so.

"Don't touch me! You bunch of demons! I don't want to be tortured by you anymore! You are not my son—no, no, I don't have a son—!"

"Mom, please don't do this... please recognize me... I'm Neville—"

His words were completely drowned out by her heart-wrenching screams.

Just as she was about to pounce, the door of the ward was suddenly pushed open, and a nurse in white rushed in with a small bottle of lavender medicine in her hand. She skillfully controlled the patient and fed her the medicine.

After a few minutes, the woman gradually calmed down, leaned against the head of the bed, and fell drowsy.

The nurse patted her back and whispered soothing words. Neville froze in his place, his heart still beating as if it was about to explode. After a while, he said hoarsely: "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to irritate her... I just..."

"You shouldn't have come." The nurse said calmly, "A patient in this state shouldn't be in contact with outsiders, especially someone like you—"

She turned her face slowly.

Neville shuddered violently.

——He will never forget that face.

Thick black curly hair, pale skin, and a strange grin on the corner of his mouth.

It was the face of Bellatrix Lestrange.

"you……"

"What?" The nurse raised her lips and smiled crazily, "I've taken care of her for so many years, and she's always been very well behaved, until you showed up."

She approached step by step, the wand in her hand crackling and shooting sparks in the air, as if she would cast a spell at any moment.

Neville instinctively stepped back.

His heel hit something with a dull thud, and he looked down to see the broken pieces of the kettle, with his own terrified face reflected in them.

"You shouldn't have come in here, Neville Longbottom."

The face of "Bellatrix" was close to his, almost touching the tip of his nose.

"Welcome to your hell."

*

"Neville, believe me, this kind of thing will only get worse if we wait. Someone needs to come in and investigate the situation first!"

Harry grabbed Neville's arm and had barely finished speaking when he felt a dizzying tug at his feet and the world seemed to flip upside down.

He fell.

It wasn't the feeling of weightlessness you get from diving from a diving platform, but rather the illusion of completely falling into an invisible abyss, as if someone was violently pulling the soul out of the body, and the biting cold wrapped around the limbs like a snake, dully tightening every inch of skin.

Harry couldn't breathe and struggled to open his eyes. In the darkness, a dazzling green light came towards him -

"Avada Kedavra!"

The woman's screams echoed shrilly amidst the sound of spells.

Harry jumped up, sweat on his forehead and his chest heaving violently. He saw himself lying on -

...In the cupboard?

The narrow and low ceiling, the pile of broken toys, the familiar and sickening musty smell... He reached out and touched the mottled wooden wall in disbelief.

"Harry!"

boom--

There was a slam on the cupboard door.

"Harry Potter, stop pretending to be dead!" Uncle Vernon roared, his voice vibrating against the door. "Today is your first day at Stonewall Academy, lazy bum! Get out here and make breakfast!"

Harry froze, looking down.

He saw a baggy gray school uniform lying beside him, dyed a strange brown-green color, and emitting a foul odor that irritated his nose... That was -

"Dudley's old clothes?" he murmured.

No.

This isn't right.

He shouldn't be here. He was already... a wizard, already at Hogwarts, with Amanda, Draco, Luna, Hermione, and...

"Neville!" He sat up and looked around.

There was silence outside the cupboard door.

"Don't be ridiculous!" he cried. "This is fake! I'm not in Privet Drive anymore, do you hear me? I don't—"

"boom!"

Suddenly, there were heavy footsteps outside the door, followed by Aunt Petunia's sharp and shrill curses.

"Are you dawdling again? Just wait for our whole family to starve to death, Harry Potter!"

Harry's heartbeat suddenly quickened. He stared at the door. Light shone through the crack, and shadows flickered, as if more than one person was standing behind it.

His hand trembled as he raised his wand, but he froze the next moment.

—He didn't have his wand with him.

"How can it be……"

He lowered his head and looked at his skinny arms. He was wearing a worn T-shirt with cartoon patterns from his childhood printed on it. His hair was hanging in front of his forehead in a mess, as if he had never left this hellish place.

"No, it's an illusion." He gritted his teeth, his nails digging into his palms. "It's a curse, an illusion..."

The cursing outside the door sounded again, and the familiar and suffocating daily routine eroded his last bit of sanity.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember Amanta's voice, the way Draco rolled his eyes, and what Luna had said to him under the tree.

He took a deep breath, then lunged for the cupboard door—

He pushed the door open.

But the light outside the door was not the kitchen light.

Harry froze.

He saw himself.

Another him stood outside the door, with a sarcastic smile on his lips and gloomy eyes.

"Hello, Harry," the "he" whispered. "Welcome back."