* * *

 "Dad! Where's my blue tie? You know, the one with dots on it?" Neville called down the staircase at Spinner's End.

He heard his father in the kitchen, dishes clinking against one another in the after-breakfast cleanup.

"Have you looked in your closet?" Severus called back.

"It isn't there! I need it, dad!"

There was a brief pause.

"There's one in my closet. The hook on the left."

Neville smiled, a feeling of warmth flooding through him. Gestures like these, little things but so important, still took him off-guard.

"Thanks, dad, found it!" Neville said, throwing the tie around his neck. He paused a second before shouting. "Now, what?"

In the kitchen, Severus allowed himself a slight chuckle. "I'll help you in a minute, son," he replied.

It was a very important day - more important than the adoption signing the week before or Neville's choice to be re-sorted at the start of the school year. This day was monumental.

Twenty minutes later, Neville and Snape were heading out the front door of their home, dressed in their best robes, hair slicked back and in place - which was a feat in itself. Snape had his hand on Neville's shoulder as he walked beside the boy. The man wanted to voice a question, but he was too frightened of the answer to say it aloud.

Neville took a steadying breath. "I'm glad you're going with me," he said quietly.

Snape squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "There is no place else I would rather be, Neville."

Turning, they disappeared with a pop, throwing up a cloud of dust in their wake.

* * *

Harry walked towards the elevator with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. He was about to meet his real parents. He should be thrilled and excited, but all he felt was cold and a lump kept forming in his throat.

He still loved James and Lily Potter, and many times found himself thinking of them as mom and dad - he even had memories of them that had been conjured up by the re-telling of stories and his own imagination. It was like losing them all over again. The grief was thick and fell over him like a blanket.

When the elevator door opened with a 'ding' Harry found himself face to face with Neville for the first time since their meeting in the headmaster's office several weeks before. They had been avoiding each other. An awkward silence fell between them. Severus Snape was standing beside Neville, his pale hand still perched on the teenager's shoulder.

"How have you been?" Neville spoke first, hesitantly.

"Fine," Harry replied.

"And Gran?" Neville's green eyes widened a bit in anticipation. He had been worried about the old bat.

"She's, well, she's -"

"-Gran," they finished together.

Both boys shared a smile. The tension eased and Harry felt his shoulders relax. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all. He had missed the other boy a little. Neville had always been in the background at Hogwarts, but he had been kind and helpful.

"How about you, professor?" Harry asked, braving a look over his shoulder towards the potions master.

Severus inclined his head. "I am better, now."

Neville blushed beside his father and couldn't stop his smile from spreading. Harry felt a pang of envy as he watched them interact. He had grown up neglected by the Dursleys and thinking his parents were long dead. He turned his blue gaze back to the elevator doors and tried to look forward to meeting his parents for the first time.

When they disembarked from the lift, all three headed down the hall searching the door numbers for 234. A moment later, they were standing outside the closed door, each lost in thought.

"Are you going to go in or just stand there?" a passing mediwitch asked snidely.

Snape glared after the woman before releasing his hold on Neville. "I can wait out here if you would like," he offered.

Neville sniffed a little, his green eyes bright with unshed tears. "That would be great. Just for a minute, though."

Harry's hands were shaking and he balled them into fists. He took a deep breath and together the boys walked through the door into the ward. Neville lead the way past the beds where witches, wizards and squibs were mumbling or quietly singing to themselves. It was the most unsettling thing Harry had ever witnessed and he inched a little closer to Neville.

"They're just over here," Neville whispered.

They passed three more beds and then reached a separated area where sheets were floating in the air around a couple of beds. Neville nodded, indicating that their parents were inside.

Harry's stomach knotted. Pulling back the curtain, the boys were engulfed by the magically induced silence within. A charm had been set to keep out noises and keep in the insane rambling. A man and a woman were lying on two beds, facing the ceiling and muttering to themselves in frightened whispers.

"I'll never tell them -"

"-won't give in to it -"

"- stop hurting me, please -"

"... where is my son?"

The words flowed into one another in a never-ending conversation. Neville looked down at them with a mixture of sadness, love and an unidentified feeling that was churning in his heart. They were his, but not anymore.

"Dad, mom, this is Harry," Neville introduced the other boy. "He's - He's," Neville swallowed the lump in his throat, "your son."

Harry stiffened beside him.

"There was a mistake here when we were born. We got switched," Neville explained, knowing that his parents didn't understand him. "He's here now, though."

Harry moved forward a step, his blue gaze moving between the two adults. "Hi. Mom, dad... I... I..."

The adults had quieted when Neville spoke, but when Harry started speaking they interrupted loudly.

"Where are you, Frank?"

"Please, stop hurting her -"

"I'll never tell you!"

"... the flowers were pretty ..."

"Where have all the combs gone?"

Harry turned on his heel and ran as fast as he could. Away from the nonsense and the voices. He did not stop until he reached the far wall of the ward, his heart pounding loudly in his ears. Harry leaned against the wall, letting his shaking knees give out. He fell to the floor with a sob.

His parents were crazy.

His parents were dead.

None of this was real. He let the tears fall, feeling empty inside. He stared at the floor, not hearing the approaching footsteps.

"I'm sorry. Guess I should have warned you," Neville said, sliding down to sit beside the brown-haired boy.

Harry felt green eyes study him. "I'm not going back. Those people are not my parents. This is all a stupid mistake!" he hit the floor with a fist.

"I think you will find that a great many mistakes have taken place over the years, Mr. Potter," Severus Snape spoke derisively from several feet away.

Harry wiped his tears away, blushing in shame. "Didn't hear you, professor."

"Yes. I am very good at not being heard. Either that, or you are an abysmal listener. I would wager on the latter."

Harry remained silent, eyes downcast.

"Hm. Perhaps I was wrong about you, Mr. Potter." Snape strode up to them, reaching down to give Neville a helping hand. "Maybe you are not your father's son."

"What?" Harry asked, confused.

"Professor McGonagall and I were just remarking the other day how much you are like the Longbottoms and how much my Neville is like Lily and James. I told her you were your father's son, but perhaps I was mistaken... maybe I had it right all those years ago. Are you a spoiled brat who insists the world bow to his whims, or are you the son of a brave man who saw things as they truly were and never tried to -"

"Um, dad," Neville was standing now and he pulled on his father's robe sleeve tentatively.

Snape looked down at his son. "Yes?"

"You're being profusely loquacious," the boy said in a stage whisper.

The raven-haired man looked completely taken aback by his son's observation. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. From the floor, Harry smirked tiredly.

"Neville, I think I love you."

"None of that - we're practically brothers!" Neville shuddered dramatically.

"Not like that!" Harry nearly shrieked.

"If you boys are quite through..." Snape motioned towards the Longbottoms' quartered-off area.

"Oh, right," Harry sighed heavily. "I guess it's better to face them now with you two, than later with Gran."

Neville nodded enthusiastically. "Mu-u-ch better, trust me."

Harry stood to his feet and together the trio made their way back towards where the sheets swung in a gentle, magical breeze.

"Remember, they have clear moments, sometimes. Don't treat them like idiots. They are hearing you... it's just... they don't always know that they are here." Neville pointed to the floor to indicate the present. "Most of the time, I think they're still lost in the torture."

Harry bit his lip, eyebrows squishing together as he tried to remain calm.

"Will they ever get better?" His words were barely audible as he looked down at his parents.

"It is doubtful. I am truly sorry," Snape replied in a rusty monotone.

Harry felt a stirring of love begin to from in his chest as he took in their features. Suddenly, his long face and thick eyebrows made sense. He could see parts of himself in his mother, her eyes and chin, and in his father, the nose and smile. It was like coming home after being gone so long you'd forgotten what home looked like.

Neville watched his fellow Gryffindor start to bond with the man and woman he had always thought of as his parents. He still loved them, always would, but a small part of himself had always wondered if they were all he would ever have - broken shells of their former selves. Now, he had a chance of learning what a true family really meant.

Snape kept his eyes on both boys, knowing that this was probably the hardest moment of their young lives; a truly unique moment that he could not even begin to understand. Their family history had been ripped out from under them and replaced by what must seem to them a cruel joke. Trading one shattered family for another. He vowed to help them each in any way that he could.

* * *

"I hear that you visited Frank and Alice this morning?" Professor McGonagall said, stopping Harry as he approached Augusta Longbottom's house later that evening. It was apparent McGonagall had been waiting for him to return.

"Yes, I did," Harry said.

"Well, how did it go?" the old woman asked, clasping her hands before her nervously.

"Good as can be expected, I suppose," Harry shrugged.

"I just wanted to say that I am very glad you have chosen to embrace them as your own." Dampness brightened her eyes, but her voice remained steady. "They were two of the bravest people I have ever known and I know they would be proud of you and the things you have done for the wizarding world."

Harry smiled in acknowledgment, not knowing how to tell his teacher that she had no reason to be proud. He had done nothing of importance except survive a killing curse that had slaughtered another person's family. So, he stayed silent and let her finish.

"If you ever need someone to talk to or if you are finding it hard to adjust to things, please, come talk to me. My door is always open for you, my boy."

When she had gone Harry stood, staring forward unseeingly, on the path leading up to his new home. It was all too much and he wanted to run up to his bed and sleep until it all ended - until things turned back to the way they were supposed to be. The boy wondered how long it would take for him to stop wishing for the impossible.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the troublesome thoughts, Harry entered the house.

* * *

Neville sat down on his bed, hands at his side. In front of him, floating in the air by a spell was a picture of Lily and James Potter dancing in the falling leaves of autumn. He did not know what year it had been taken, but he liked to think it was sixteen years ago and Lily was pregnant with him. That would mean that he had a picture of the three of them together, a family for the first and only time.

A tear fell and soaked into the Ravenclaw-blue bedspread that Severus had bought him a few days before in Diagon Alley. He gripped it tight with both hands, letting the texture of the fabric keep him from falling into a numb state.

The picture continued on an endless loop, Lily and James dancing with smiles and laughter as the leaves tumbled to the ground around them. It was a beautiful scene and Neville was thankful for whomever had captured it.

Staring at them now was like looking into a mirror of might-have-beens. He could clearly see the resemblance between himself and these two strangers. Still, he could not seem to feel the same amount of love for them that he had for the Longbottoms or Snape.

Snape. His father. His friend.

Neville's green eyes widened as a thought struck him. He had three fathers now, one by blood and the other two by the hand of Fate. A soppy smile beamed in the picture's reflection. Neville felt at peace for the first time in ages. Even if it took a while for things to become 'normal', he had Snape to watch out for him. Everything would be alright.

* * *