Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
A/N: something that popped into my head at 2:00 in the morning. Though the late hour can't be used as a viable excuse if this turns out to suck. I wrote it the next day.
Top of the List
My name is Neville Longbottom, and I have more friends than anyone else in Hogwarts. Some people would envy me... strange though it seems. Who would envy me? Because the fact is that though I have so many friends, none of them are best friends. Or even what could be considered "great friends."
If you asked them, Harry, Ron, and Hermione would adamantly claim to be "great friends" with me. As would Susan Bones, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and maybe even Daphne Greengrass to a lesser extent. But they are all in their own little worlds, even if they don't realize it.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are prime examples. One could even say they are the prime example, not even plural. Because that's what they are – they are a group. One entity. In the beginning of first year, I thought – just for a second – that maybe I could be part of their group.
Back then, Ron and Harry were only a duo (this being before the sketchy and mostly unexplained troll incident on Halloween), and I allowed my hopes to raise. It took only a couple of weeks for them to come crashing down. Hermione got in. I didn't.
I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about Harry, Ron, and Hermione – really, I don't! They're all friends of mine. Like I said before, it's not just them either. Maybe I made it sound like that? Well, if so, I apologize to them.
On a broader scale, everyone is like this. Everyone has their little, or not so little, group. Their cranny in the beehive of relationships that is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The only problem is unlike everyone else in the entire school, I don't have a spot.
Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas are best friends. Daphne Greengrass and Millicent Bullstrode. Susan Bones, Ernie Macmillan, and Hannah Abbot. The lists went on and on... every house. Every gender, race, sexual orientation, and whatever distinctions people put merit in. Everyone. Has. Their. Place.
Except me.
I'm the drifter. I'm perpetually present. The clumsy comic relief, the Potions failure, the "Greenhouse Guy" (I don't know who started calling me that, but I guess it could be worse). Nobody is my best friend, and nobody considers me their best friend. Or even, I'm willing to bet, within the top five.
Look, I'm not trying to sound depressing here. I've been accepting this as a fact almost since the beginning of my magical education here at Hogwarts. It's not like I'm just trying to get the "pity card," or whatever.
But nevertheless, I have more friends than anyone I know. More half-friends. Wait, no, I won't call them that. Saying it like that makes it sound like they're two faced, or like they talk about me behind my back. It's more like... I have a lot of friends, but none good enough to ever amount to what some people have.
As guilty as I feel for saying this, I'd give up all my friends I have now to have one – just one – friend who would consider me to be their best friend. We wouldn't have to be high-profile, like Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Any old person, really.
I just... want to find a group for myself. I don't want to be the person people think of second. I don't want to always be the last on the list; though I know it's almost never purposeful. I want to be the first person somebody thinks of when they think of friends. The person they turn to when they have a problem, or need advice. Hell, I wouldn't care if they needed to ask me to borrow my History of Magic notes. All I want is to be the first person that pops into someone's head.
"Who can we ask?" Someone will say.
"How about Neville?"
I have never heard this conversation before, and I have accepted for the most part that it is likely never to happen. Even when Harry was wrapped up in the Second Task back in fourth year, he didn't think of coming to me for help. After all, who would think that Neville of all people would be the only person who could help you?
Again, I must stress that I'm not trying to make anyone sound like the bad guy. Except maybe Malfoy, but he will always be "the bad guy," to me, even is his family is supposedly "reformed." Yeah, right. By the way, did you hear that Snape has decided I've outmatched him in Potions knowledge, and is stepping down to let me be the new professor?
Yet another suggestion with about equal probability to me ever being at the top of the anybody's list.
Sometimes, I can't help but wonder if things would be different had my parents been alive. Yeah, there's no need to correct me. I know they're "alive." I just don't think of them that way. Sometimes I even envy Harry and Daphne Greengrass. The fact that their parents are dead, anyways. But don't ever tell them that! They wouldn't get it.
The difference is, I have to live with the hope that maybe – maybe – my parents could get better someday. Usually hope is a good thing, but in my circumstances I've found it's more often not. I can't move on from them not being in my life, because they are in my life, even if it is such a miniscule way. I'm not allowed to give up hope that someone will magically (no pun intended) invent a Charm that will heal them with the flick of a wand and a garbled Latin incantation. Instead, just like how I wish for a best friend, I have to hope To yearn, and to want and to never give up like a true Gryffindor.
And to always be disappointed.
A/N: The ending was kind of abrupt, but it felt right.