Chapter One

Neville hummed to himself as he took off his brown suit jacket and hung it on the back of the door to his office in the Ministry of Magic. The morning was starting off great already and he had high hopes for the rest of the day.

"Mornin', Trevor." He called to the toad that was sitting on top of the personalized terrarium along the left hand wall by his desk. The amphibian gave a croak of a greeting and Neville grinned and moved over to feed him, letting loose a few crickets into the enclosure.

"What do you say we see what the agenda has in store today?" He asked and put the toad inside before closing the door and moving to his cluttered desk to start sorting out some papers. In his pocket, he felt the warm vibration of the Remembrall that his grandmother had given him.

Taking it out, he looked it over, watching the red cloud inside a moment swirling to tell him he had forgotten something. before he shook his head and put it away again. He never could remember what he was supposed to be remembering.

"Mr. Longbottom?" Came a voice from the door and Neville lifted his eyes from the scattered mess of papers.

"Yes, Tara? Come in…" He spoke as he recognized the voice of the assistant assigned to himself and other aurors and slowly, she stepped inside.

She was a quiet young woman, a little older than him in her late twenties, but she was still quite lovely. Her hair was cut short and mousy brown, spiked out with short bangs on her forehead. She had graduated from Beauxbatons.

"What do you need, Tara?" He asked, wondering just what her presence in his office meant this morning.

"You're needed downstairs, Sir. There was an attack and Weasley managed to catch one of the dark witches…"

"They caught one alive?" He was a little stunned at that for sure, but he got up from his desk, grabbing his jacket and wand as he made his way with Tara to the elevators and the holding area that Ministry had downstairs.

At the bottom floor, Ronald met him and nodded to him before leading the way down the dim hall to a room.

"Sorry to call you down here, Nev, but we thought you might want to be a part of this. See it for yourself…"

"You and Harry usually handle the interrogations…what's up this time?"

"It's not so much what we caught as who…" Ron nudged him towards the door and inside. Inside there were a couple chairs against the wall, the room itself was slender, maybe four feet by ten feet long. In front of the chairs was a large window, the two way glass that looked into the interrogation room. There was a soundproofing spell on the observation room as well.

At the moment, all Neville could see was the back of Harry Potter's messy black manned head and a little of the table beyond, but little else.

"We checked your wand already. You call to not be a dark witch, so do you care to explain why your last spell was a curse that causes intense internal bleeding?" Harry confronted the dark witch.

"I had to defend myself." A shock went through Neville as he heard the voice. "I was being attacked."

The voice was so familiar and when Harry stepped to the side away from the window, Neville felt his heart drop into his stomach like a lead weight as he got his first look at the girl in the room.

She had aged since the last time he had seen her. Bags under her eyes darkened her green eyes and made her skin much paler than he recalled. She looked tired…weary. Once neatly combed dark chestnut hair was now messy and sticking out from a tussled long braid that fell to her mid back. She looked more like her mother now that she was older and that was a truly horrifying thought.

"So you decided to curse your attackers enough to nearly kill them?"

"What was I suppose to do?" Her voice was worn down, shaky. He wondered how long they had been questioning her. "I defended myself and that's my story. I'm not even a part of this world anymore, Harry. I gave it up and moved to London to get away from all this."

"You kept your wand." He pointed out with a smirk and Lyra shook her head in annoyance with him not understanding her. "You mentioned something about going to London earlier. You ran away there to try life as a muggle, correct?"

The girl gave a slow nod.

"Everyone thought you had died at the castle during the last battle. Why didn't you stick around after Voldemort's defeat? It looks a bit fishy that you ran off when he was gone…like you were avoiding something. You never even finished the last year of schooling."

"I had to…" She whispered and took a deep breath. It was then that Neville noted her bound hands behind the back of the chair. They were not taking any chances with her.

"You alright, Neville?" Ron asked from next to him and Neville slowly nodded to him.

"Yeah…just kinda…shocked."

Ron chuckled at that. "I know, right? Who would have thought…I mean, I always kind of thought she was a bit off…but really a dark witch? Guess you really can judge people by the look of 'em. If it quacks like a duck, right?" He smirked and patted Neville on the back as Harry came from the room beyond. Nodding to them both in greeting, he shut the door behind him firmly.

"We caught her near Grimmauld Place with several other dark wizards, but they gave us the slip. All but her. I didn't believe it was Lyra at first, I didn't want to…but there she is. I thought you said she was dead, Neville?" Harry asked the last after he had filled him in a little.

Neville was thoughtful for a moment at that, remembering back to that battle. "I thought she had been killed by Amycus Carrow…I guess I was wrong…"

Harry gave him an odd look at that before glancing back at Lyra in the interrogation room. She was sitting still, shutting her eyes for a moment tiredly. "She's claiming innocence still on the charges, but I don't know really what to do from here. She was definitely using dark magic, we can prove that, but for what reason is the question. It could really be that she used the spell to defend herself…"

"Have you talked to Kingsley?" Neville asked curiously, wondering what the Minister of Magic would want them to do.

Harry nodded to him slowly. "I did. He wants us to investigate this further and see if she's telling the truth or not. I'm to head to London and check where she says she's been working and living, see if anyone actually knows about her. I need you to make sure she stays put until we get things figured out."

"You…you want me to play babysitter for her? Harry, I can't…you know who she is…"

Harry put a hand up at that. "No, Neville, I want you to do the job I've given you. You will keep an eye on her and I know you'll do it well because of your…history. You're good at what you do, Neville, or else I wouldn't put this on your shoulders…"

Neville let out a heavy sigh to that and nodded once more before he went to the door and turned the handle. He needed to collect his charge.

As he entered the room, Lyra lifted her head, expecting Harry to be returning for another round of questions. She was thrown off though when she saw Neville standing before her. Her eyes searched his face with uncertainty, her skin flushing even more.

"Neville…" She whispered softly, stunned to see him of all people as an auror.

Neville gave her a nod of greeting in return. "Lestrange."