Title: Crossing Over Characters: Neville Rating: PG Summary: There's a fine line between muggles and magic folk, and between the living and the dead. Notes: Thank you to my beta, L. magnetic_pole, I hope this is what you were asking for.
When Neville was five, he began to hear the word "squib." Worried by Gran’s face, he went searching for his magic. He looked in every cupboard and under every bed, but found nothing. By the time he was eight, he’d quit looking. He was anchored solidly in the muggle world, and that was that.
Or it would have been if Great Uncle Algie hadn’t dangled him out the second story window one day — and then absent-mindedly let go. As he fell, Neville expected to break. Instead, he fell into magic the way a rock falls into a pond. Magic!
That memory makes Neville smile, a dim echo of the joy on Gran’s face when she raced out of the house and found him bouncing down the street like a rubber ball. Of course, Gran’s dead now, impossibly silent and still.
Yet she’s not completely gone, not while Neville needs her, not now. The cold wind is ripping at the leaves, leaving strange gaps in the trees. Soon, only the branches will remain, dark lines in the pale sky. Neville can feel the walls between the worlds thinning with each passing day. If he’s patient he’ll hear her voice again.