A/N: Not a lot of dialogue until the end, this is one of my first with out a lot so please feel free to tell me how to improve in a review! Alice and Neville's relationship really intrigues me so I was really excited to get this prompt.
Alice Longbottom wasn't sure about children. She had never woken up one day and thought 'I really desperately want a child.' But she was so sure about Frank, incredibly sure she wanted to be married, to have someone to be with forever and Frank had always been her best friend.
Eventually she became so sure about Frank in their marriage that they had sex… more than once. She always knew in the back of her mind they would have a child but she never knew it would come so soon.
It was rush, one second she had a pregnancy test with a little pink plus sign and the next she was laying in St. Mungo's screaming as her little baby boy came out of her womb. Neville was handed to her first and when she looked at him she knew, she knew she wanted to have so many kids they were falling out the windows.
Alice hung the moon for Neville, new toys and clothes; she even started a new vault at Gringotts for his future adding in spare knuts when she got them. She would swaddle him in diapers and shower him with gifts; the entire Auror office was like his extended family.
"Here, mum," Alice carefully handed her mother her son and his diaper bag. "We should be back in a few days it's just a short mission, Bellatrix Lestrange, You-Know-Who has already fallen, no need to worry."
Later those words would come to haunt her. Neville's grandmother came to the hospital nearly everyday mourning over her daughter, at first Alice didn't say anything while Frank never stopped talking, and he kept reciting Babity Rabity over and over again. Eventually they found a happy medium, they could recognize that they should know her sometimes but mostly they didn't.
Neville came to terms that this is how parents should act as he got older, but eventually he realized through Muggle television that parents should be loving and caring not ranting out insanity and giving him endless amounts of bubblegum wrappers.
By the time he was 13 and old enough to understand these wrappers probably meant something to his parents he started taking them. Soon he realized that they only gave the wrappers to people they liked, Neville mostly, some nurses and occasionally his gran but mostly Neville.
When Neville finally graduated his small drawer eventually started overflowing so he began putting them other places, in shoe boxes, plastic bags, even his hats.
Time came to pass and he couldn't visit his parents as often. His dad started to forget who he was and would start screaming at him when he came in but his mom always said, "Hello, little boy, you look just like the little baby in my dreams. Here, take this. Did you know frogs can hop backwards? And fish can fly high in the sky, all the way over Big Ben Tower," or something to that effect.
Eventually Neville could only make bi-monthly visits, but he would stay from the beginning of visitor hours to the very, very end when nurses started threatening to call the Ministry.
More and more time passed and Neville was engaged to the girl of his dreams, Hannah Abbott. He took her in to see his parents for the first time. "Little boy from my dreams!" Alice cried out offering him a handful of gum wrappers.
He carefully put them in his pockets and brought Hannah over, his father eerily quiet these days. "Hi, mum, this is Hannah. We're getting married."
"Oh little boy, you are only five years old, much, much too young to be getting a goose." His mother said as she began colouring on a packet of playing cards.
"No, mum, I'm twenty five, I turned twenty five in March, remember?" He asked almost pleading with her as Hannah sat on the edge of her chair unsure of how to act.
"That's what I said, you are five." She nodded and then began screeching out a song that sounded faintly like something the Sorting Hat would sing except all the words were switched.
"Mum, mum, quiet, you don't want to disturb dad." He said patting her knee.
"Of course, you never ever want to anger a sleeping cat." She said rolling her eyes as though it was common knowledge.
"Right, mum." He said softly and watched as she began chewing more Droobles.
"Here," she said offering up the wrapper to Hannah. When Hannah took it Alice put her hand on her cheek and stroked her face. "Very yellow coloured," Alice nodded to herself.
Hannah furrowed her brow and leaned behind Neville to throw the wrapper away but he caught her wrist. "We have to go now, mum, I love you." He said and kissed her on the forehead.
"Cats will never know love!" She screeched before going back a wrapper which she was currently folding.
Neville lead Hannah into the hallway. "Mum only gives those to people she likes." He said. "I just wanted to let you know, you know, before you threw it in the rubbish bin."
Hannah nodded slowly and stuck it in her purse. "I'll keep it then." He nodded and smiled sadly as his mom waved at him through the Plexiglas window.
He didn't remember a time when his mother could say that she loved him but he didn't need that to know. She loved him even if she couldn't remember who he was most of the time, she loved him no matter what, she just had a different way of showing it. Love would always be there verbally or not.
