Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and I'm making no revenue for this whatsoever.

A/N: Rated M for a reason, due to language, violence and sexual content. While there won't be any Lemons in the first few chapters, give it time to grow- there'll be an abundant harvest of them soon enough, in later chapters. You have been warned…


Prologue: Trevor's Last Croak

It all began that day when he'd been working away in the greenhouses at Hogwarts, on the little allotment Professor Sprout had been letting him use… No, wait, that wasn't quite true. It had all begun long before that- from that first day he'd embarked upon that first ride to Hogwarts. Maybe even before then, if he counted the way he'd gotten treated by his family. He'd always been bullied, picked on and heckled, the butt of everyone's jokes and pranks for as long as he could remember. At first, he'd just wanted them to be nice to him, like he went out of his way to be nice to everyone else. But he'd soon realized that it'd never happen. And so, he'd given up on that childhood dream of being treated nicely, like everyone else got treated by the people who cared about them, and adopted a new goal instead- to be treated with respect, for them to treat him like someone who mattered, the kind of guy that no-one wanted to messed with. And that kind of guy wasn't the kind of guy who'd be bothered about a stinky, slimy pet toad.

He'd always hated Trevor. His grandmother had gone out of her way to buy it for him, and to saddle him with it, specifically 'cause he'd kept insisting that he HADN'T wanted to her to get him a familiar, that he NEVER wanted a familiar. If there'd been a skunk, or any other stinkier and/or slimier animal in the store at the time, she'd have got that instead. But Trevor had been the worst pick of the lot at the time, so Granny Augusta had bought him- deliberately paying an extortionate amount of five galleons for him, even though he'd been on sale for a single sickle, and forcing him to carry the disgusting creature around in his hands for the whole day. She'd ordered him to take perfect care of it "as a test of character, and to prove that you can handle responsibility." Which meant feeding it, cleaning out its litter box, bathing it, deep-cleansing its slimy, warty pores, even taking the damned thing out on a leash and dragging it along on walks every single day.

Still, no matter how fat and pampered Trevor had become over the past few years, nothing he did for the vile toad would ever be good enough for her. She'd always find something about Trevor which she could nit-pick about, heckling him to claim that- Merlin, you can't even handle looking after a TOAD! Just look at the filthy state of it, look at the pathetic job you're doing with it! How, HOW are you supposed to handle your responsibilities as the sole heir of the Most Ancient House of Longbottom, if you're not even capable of taking care of a toad? Useless, useless boy… And on that day, on his allotment in the greenhouses, he'd decided that he'd had enough, and that he was damned well going to do something about it. He was going to turn over a new leaf, free himself from the shackles, and build up a brand new image for himself. And to do that, he'd have to take Trevor out of the picture. For him to stand a chance of ever having a life, Trevor the Toad would have to die.

But how? He'd realized long ago that, even if the decrepit, now arthritic Trevor were to die in his sleep of old age- which he seemed to be taking FOREVER to do- his Nan would still cite it as proof of his failure, and use that failure as a club to brow-beat him with, beating him down, down, down. No. He couldn't just wait any longer. He couldn't just get rid of it, toss it in a ditch or in the Lake and be done with it- if he lost Trevor, his Gran had made it clear from day one that it'd prove that he'd completely and utterly failed to handle his responsibilities, and that he couldn't be trusted to handle looking after anything- the management of his parents' vault in Gringotts would be handed over to a third party, and he'd never be able to access his inheritance himself, ever. He needed Trevor's body, at the very least. And she'd be sure to do a diagnostic spell on it, to confirm how Trevor'd copped it. That ruled out practically every method he could think of. But there had to be another way, some other method to rid himself of the accursed toad...

Then, he'd turned, and caught a glimpse of one particular magical plant, over in the corner of the greenhouse he was in, right next to the door to the greenhouse with the silencing wards on it, the one which Sprout kept her Mandrakes in. The herb which he realised could be the perfect solution to dispense with his toad once and for all. It was a magical member of the stitchwort family, a species so obscure that it didn't even get a mention in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi- the only magical text he could remember ever reading about it in mentioned it as a remedy for mange, as well as for a food supplement to help with skin diseases, rheumatic pains and arthritis. But he knew something that they didn't about it, remembered something which Professor Sprout had told him about it a few weeks back. About the reason that she was growing it here in the first place, what she'd been experimenting with using it for.

This plant had a special defence to protect itself from slimy pests- apparently, if any slimy animals tucked in on its leaves, they'd start secreting a special substance in their slime which would be an irresistible invitation for any birds in the area to come over and chow down on them, even more potent than catnip was for cats. Professor Sprout had dropped a mention of her special project- she'd been taking trimmings from that plant, feeding them to flobberworms, and then harvesting their slime to be used as an additive for owl tonics, a way to try and entice owls to drink medicinal and remedial potions no matter how bad they tasted. And it worked too, so far as he'd heard- so well that a fair few of the owls apparently hadn't been able to hold themselves back from lapping it up, even after they'd regurgitated the even slimier and more foul-tasting potions back up over and over again. Trevor, well, he was easily as slimy as any flobberworm, and a hell of a lot greedier. It would be perfect

Striding across to that corner of the greenhouse, Neville had taken his shears and trimmed off a few of its leaves, to be chopped up and added to the oh-so-special salad that he'd prepare for Trevor's breakfast, first thing tomorrow morning just like he'd had to do every other morning for the past three-and-a-half years, for the very last time. As he did though, taking a look around to make sure that he was all alone and that he wasn't being watched, his eyes lingered on the silenced greenhouse next door, the one with the Mandrakes in it. He just wasn't an animal person- he never had been, and after his long and arduous 'Trial by Toad', he was determined to NEVER have to look after another pet. Never again. But he most certainly was a plant person. Plants were calming, relaxing, cleansing, fresh, fragrant- everything that animals, especially Trevor, weren't. Yep- once he'd got rid of Trevor's turgid, foul swamp-scented lily-pad sleeping basket, the first thing he'd do would be to put a nice plant pot there to take its place by his bedside.

But then again, that wouldn't really earn him any respect, would it? That wouldn't improve his image with the others back in his Gryffindor Dorm room at all. Unless… Unless it was a really bad-ass plant in that pot. Like one of those plants in there, in that silenced greenhouse. Like a Mandrake. Now, that would be a plant worth keeping, worth tending to and looking after. A Mandrake would really be able to appreciate being taken good care of, way more than Trevor ever had. It'd be perfectly safe, of course- so long as he treated it well, took care of it, kept it well-watered and made sure that the soil in the pot was nice and fertile, it'd be snug as a bug in a rug. But even so, everyone knew what Mandrakes could do, what they were capable of. What kind of guy would keep a mandrake by his bedside as a pot plant? The kind of guy that no-one would want to mess with, that's who. Even so, on that day, he'd let it go. Just taken those leaf trimmings and walked away. But once he'd had that idea, it wouldn't leave him alone…

The next morning, he'd set his plan into motion- chopped up the leaf trimmings, and added them to one of the nicest, tastiest salads he'd ever prepared for Trevor. Even tasted a bit of it himself, since that side effect he was hoping for wouldn't affect him in the slightest- it tasted nice, kind of like sweet, minty lettuce. And of course, Trevor the fat, greedy toad hadn't needed any convincing when there was a meal to be had. He'd guzzled the whole lot of it down, every scrap that had been in that man-sized, full-to-the-brim serving bowl, in less than a minute. And given himself gas, like the bloated windbag always did- belching and farting out puffs of gas that were so noxious that even dung-bombs would've been preferable, that he'd have to keep casting charms to clear the air around the disgusting creature every few seconds for the next hour or so. He would have had to, at any rate- just like he'd had to so many days before. But not on that day. Or on any other day, from then on.

Heading out of his dorm and out of the Gryffindor Common Room with Trevor on his leash, dragging the flatulent toad along on its morning walk as usual, Neville had to admit that he'd been nervous, really nervous. Licking his lips, twiddling his fingers as he made his way down the corridors and staircases that led down into the Entrance Hall, on his way to the Great Hall, all of those questions and what-ifs had been going through his head, almost driving him mental. What with the Triwizard Tournament going on strong, and the Yule Ball fast approaching, there'd be plenty of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students there in the Great Hall, eating breakfast and casting their nets for potential partners. And there'd be owls galore. But would it work? What if the herb didn't have the desired effect after all? What if it did, and his Gran argued that he should've been able to fend off all of the owls regardless? What if he didn't react like everyone else thought he should when it happened, if he wasn't shocked or scared or startled enough, and people twigged on that he'd played a part in making it all happen?

He was no Slytherin- that plotting and scheming stuff had been tough enough behind closed doors, even when it had been just him. But trying to do it in public, to deceive an audience? He'd been so unsure, hadn't known if he'd have what it'd take to pull it off convincingly. Now though, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. He didn't, and definitely hadn't had what it would take back then- he wouldn't have stood a chance. But thankfully, he'd never made it into the Great Hall with Trevor. He'd never even made it down the entrance staircase into the Entrance Hall proper. And when that burst of flame had exploded, right in his face, out of the blue, without any hint of a warning, he hadn't had to fake anything. He had genuinely been startled out of his wits for a few moments, planted on his backside, too stunned to act or intervene when Fawkes had dived down after flaming in and started tearing Trevor limb from limb with his hooked beak, wolfing down the chunks like there was no tomorrow. All he'd been able to do was watch on, his eyes widened at the up-close-and-personal sight of a phoenix driven wild, locked in a feeding frenzy. No-one, no-one, could have possibly managed to save Trevor from that and lived to tell the tale.

He'd only managed to recover enough to stumble back to his feet when Fawkes had let out that screech of tortured anguish, and spewed out the smoking, barbequed remnants of Trevor at the base of the stairway, before he'd flamed as far away as possible, somewhere beyond the grounds of Hogwarts, quickly as he'd come. And to tell the truth, that had been just about the only part of the whole affair that he'd actually felt properly guilty about. To be driven into a feeding frenzy, losing control over one's own actions, and then guzzle down on something as vile and slimy as Trevor had been, when you were smart and intelligent enough to truly understand what you were actually doing, like Phoenixes were? He'd heard later on that for the rest of Fawkes' life, up until the next time he'd been reborn from the ashes more than two weeks later, he'd gone on a fast, and refused to touch even a bite of anything. Professor Dumbledore had said that Fawkes' fast had been a show of remorse, a way to try and atone for what he'd done. Neville knew better though; he'd seen Fawkes' face when he'd flamed away, that look in his eyes. It hadn't been 'cause he'd been guilty- it'd been 'cause he hadn't been able to stomach eating anything until his next rebirth had incinerated the last traces of that vile, hellish taste.

Dumbledore knew more than he let on about what had led up to Trevor's demise, why Fawkes had lost it and burst off to eat Trevor alive. Neville knew that he knew- he was Dumbledore, he just knew stuff. But when his Gran, Augusta Longbottom, had heard about what had happened, she'd been ready to go on the warpath. And 'cause of how it had happened, she'd been too busy tongue-lashing the Headmaster for his inability to control his pet Phoenix to bother with chastising him for his own inability to protect the pet toad she'd bought him from being eaten by it. And though Dumbledore may have been the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Head of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Wizarding Council, and pretty much the most powerful wizard alive, even he knew better than to stand his ground and try fighting a battle over the incident when he was up against Grand Matriarch Longbottom. When Neville had been invited into the Head's Study later that day, finally allowed in after having had to sit outside all that time Professor Dumbledore had been on the Floo to his Gran to explain what had happened, at least an hour- most of which he'd spent on the receiving end of one of his Gran's tirades, no doubt- the Headmaster had wearily apologised to him personally, and offered to procure a replacement for Trevor, at his own expense, with money no object.

And when he'd gotten that offer, Neville hadn't even thought about any of the other things he could have got instead, the things that his classmates would have chosen if they'd been in his position- a pet dragon, a phoenix of his very own, a pygmy unicorn, or anything else like that. Because he was finally freed of Trevor, free to become his own man- and he was not an animal person. He'd remembered that idea he'd formed back in the greenhouse, where he'd made it all happen, and he'd decided to ask for a pot plant instead. For a mandrake; one with flowers which were the Gryffindor colors of red and gold. When he'd had it handed over to him a week later, in a custom-crafted magically expanded ceramic pot by Professor Sprout, who'd managed to acquire it herself on the Headmaster's behalf through her own contacts - an extremely rare 'Caspian Gilded Red', with vivid iridescent red and gold flowers- he'd known that it was a special plant. One of a kind. But he could have never dreamed how special, how important, or just how beautiful his Mandrake would grow to become...