Neville Longbottom slit open the envelope with trembling fingers. He hoped against all hope that he'd managed to scrape the OWLs his grandmother viewed as worthy. As he scanned the parchment, his heart sank. He hadn't received the OWLs required to be an Auror. This wasn't what he wanted to do, but it was what was expected of him, which was all that mattered.
All his life, Neville had to endure constant competition with his father, who was by all accounts an extraordinary wizard. Neville began letting down Gran at a young age, not learning to walk as early as his father had and not showing magic as early as his father had.
It was hard to compete with someone who was dead.
Of course, he wasn't really dead. Neville had met the man that had been his father, but the person he was now was so completely different from the one he had been that the distinction was almost irrelevant. Neville knew he would never know the smiling, handsome man he saw in photographs that was so skilled and brave: more skilled, and far braver than Neville could hope to be.
Even after his adventure into the ministry – that terrifying night – hadn't brought him quite up to Gran's expectations. Sure, it was wonderful that she was finally proud of him for something, but it was pride earned for how Neville was like his father, not for just who Neville was.
And now, it was over. He would never be an Auror. He could never hope to have his Gran be as proud of him as she was of her own son.
He looked down again at the big bold "O" beside the word "Herbology," and smiled a private smile before steeling his nerves to face his grandmother.