Melody and Cindy sat silently in Melody's bedroom in the Safehouse, pondering the possibility that Neville might have been spared his parents' torment only due to being obscured by Popular Auror Frank Longbottom's Invisibility Cloak.
"But," Melody said after a long silence, clutching the stuffed and toothless toy Coney that Pip had given her just the other day to help soothe her nightmares tightly to her chest. "But if Neville's parents had a Cloak, then where is it? Surely Neville doesn't have it."
"No," agreed Cindy. "Neville doesn't have it. And—"
"Oh, doesn't he?" a voice boomed.
Melody squealed and pulled her covers hard over her head. Cindy leapt to her feet, Big Paddle at the ready. She squinted suspiciously around the room.
"Who is that?" she demanded. "Show yourself."
"Er, it's just me, I think," said the voice, now sounding a lot less boomish and rather more plaintive. "Elkins. I'm pretty sure I must be somewhere in the Safe House. There's this room, and there are lots of dials and switches, and monitors showing things all over the Bay, and there are some speakers, and—"
"That would be the Comm Room," said Melody cheerfully, emerging from under her blankets.
"You guys really need to do something about the security in this place," Cindy told her.
"Hey, cool!" Elkins' voice crackled slightly with static. "It looks like a bunch of people are doing an experiment down in the laundry room. They're trying to find out if the Magic Dishwasher will still get the canons every bit as shiny and bright if you use Wolfsbane Potion as your detergent, instead of belladonna."
"Does it?" asked Cindy, with some interest.
"Don't know yet. So far it seems to be working okay, but if you ask me, it's a little bit redundant. I mean, Snape's already been canonically established as Dumbledore's spy, hasn't he? Still. I guess he could be using Lupin as well. Spymasters often do use their people that way, don't they? Setting them at cross-purposes? That happens all the time in spy novels, at any rate. So maybe it does make sense after all. I'm withholding judgement until I see how the rinse cycle works out, myself."
"But what are you doing in the Safe House, Elkins?" asked Cindy, frowning. "Since when do you go in for espionage theories?"
"Well, there is Fourth Man With Deep Undercover," Elkins pointed out. "And I did name the Fourth Man theory the Fourth Man theory, didn't I? Even though it's not really a spy theory. But I didn't actually mean to come to the Safe House. I was just doing a bit of clean-up around the Bay—you know, trying to get some of the trash picked up—and before I knew it—"
"Ah." Cindy nodded grimly. "Say no more."
"Pip never told me anything about a Portkey to the Comm Room," objected Melody indignantly. "I can't even imagine what the purpose of setting one of those up would be! It would totally compromise us!"
"A very plausible-sounding denial," said Elkins approvingly. "Like I said. Spymasters don't always keep all of their people informed about every last one of their plans. But I'm rather hoping that it was just a terrible sloppy oversight, myself. I always like it much better when it turns out that people screwed up big time than I do when it turns out that they were actually being very clever and getting things right all along — which is part of the reason that I don't come around here all that often, actually. Nothing personal, you understand. Nothing to do with plausibility. Just my own subjective preference. Certain types of competence just really get on my nerves, is all. But listen. About that Invisibility Cloak that Neville's not been telling anyone that he's got?"
"He doesn't have one," said Cindy decisively. "Don't make me throw a Yellow Flag your way, Elkins. Especially since I don't even know where you are. We've never seen any indication in the canon that Neville has an Invisibility Cloak!"
"Oh, haven't we? Doesn't Neville seem to disappear a lot? Where does he go on the train at the beginning of Goblet of Fire, for example?"
"What?"
"Well, he's standing right there, talking to Ron. Ron has just tipped the Krum figurine into his hand. And then Malfoy and his cronies show up...and he vanishes!"
"What do you mean, he vanishes? Elkins, that doesn't make any sense!"
"One minute he's there, the next he's not. Read the scene. You'll see what I mean."
Cindy frowned, then picked Melody's copy of _Goblet of Fire_ up off of the bed. She flipped a few pages, then read:
"Oh wow," said Neville enviously as Ron tipped Krum onto his pudgy hand.
"Right," said Elkins. "So then where does he go?"
"Well, he..." Cindy flipped through pages, frowning. "He...By Jove, you know you're right? He does disappear!"
"Let me see that," said Melody. She took the book from Cindy and squinted at it. "Oh!" she exclaimed, after a few moments. "There he is again."
A hundred horseless carriages stood waiting for them outside the station. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville climbed gratefully into one of them, the door shut with a snap, and a few moments later, with a great lurch, the long procession of carriages was rumbling and splashing its way up the track toward Hogwarts Castle.
"So you see?" she demanded triumphantly. "He was there. He was there all along."
"Just invisible," said Elkins drily. "Happens to him all the way through the novel, actually. First he's not there, and then, all of a sudden, he's there. He appears as if by magic! He's not part of the conversation about the Triwizard Tournament...until suddenly he is, so that he can talk 'gloomily' about his Gran wanting him to bring glory to his family name and walk right into that trick step. Harry, Ron and Hermione leave DADA class, and somehow Neville's got out into the corridor ahead of them. The kid's just plain creepy that way, if you ask me. One minute he's there, the next minute he's not."
"So you think that he actually did inherit his father's Invisibility Cloak?" asked Melody.
"Well...maybe," said Elkins. "Maybe. We do know that he's prone to keeping secrets about his parents, after all. That's established. He also really freaked out when the Gryffindor common room got tossed in CoS, didn't he? His reaction makes a lot of sense if you assume that he had something worth stealing. Something he'd been keeping secret? And what do we make of Harry in the Egg and the Eye, getting trapped in the trick step just like Neville always does — and in his Invisibility Cloak?"
"Another one of your parallelisms, Elkins?" asked Melody.
"You aren't really suggesting that Neville's been carting around a secret Invisibiility Cloak for the past three years," asked Cindy. "Are you?"
"It's always possible," Elkins voice said. "But really, I suspect that what Neville's got is something even more magical. Something even weirder. Something that neither Harry, Ron nor Hermione will ever have! Ever."
"Super reality phase-shifting powers?" asked Cindy, her eyes wide.
"Time-travel?" asked Melody.
"No. I mean authorial disinterest. Narrative invisibility."
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Elkins
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