Soul! This is for you :) I hope you don't mind the way I went with it, as I wrote it with love and the hopes that you find it enjoyable. Merry Christmas to you and your family and friends, if you celebrate it, if not then enjoy the free and family time this season gives us :D
This is written for the Secret Santa Event of the Golden Snitch forum. Visit us there and make sure you enrol because we are all awesome!
Before you start reading, you should know a piece of my headcanon for Neville. I think he was depressed for a long time before and after the Battle of Hogwarts and that he had social anxiety that didn't let him be himself most of the time. But don't be discouraged by this! This fic isn't sad, just introspective :)
Wintertime was his favourite time of the year. It was a time for family and everyone respected that. There were no unwelcome calls to the Ministry, no obligations at Hogwarts, Saint Mungo's or the like. It was a time when people without family, like him, could truly enjoy solitude.
It also helped that if he were to look out the window he would see a white and perennial-green scenery. His home, located in a land populated by magically preserved gardens and with shelves of books lining up the walls, was a blessing.
Of course, everything had to go wrong this year. Everything had to change and he made the mistake of dismissing the signs that began the very first day of the month.
Neville still hadn't forgotten the strange lady in the middle of the Ministry's Atrium. It was practically impossible for him to let go of the silky red scarf, the big brown eyes and the spark of intelligence in them. Her simple words, a hurriedly whispered I'm sorry after she stepped on his foot when they crossed paths, stayed with him and he replayed the scene on his mind, unable to remember with full detail the shape of her face or the right shade of her blond hair.
The woman with the red scarf was almost a figment of his imagination, but Neville refused to believe that. He wanted the lady to be real because he hadn't felt that pull toward someone for almost a decade and wasn't that sad?
A week after the encounter he received an invitation to Harry and Ginny's wedding. They delivered it personally to his office at Hogwarts, both smiling like crazy in love people (he supposed they were) and made him feel overwhelmed and lost in the nothingness of the world because their love made their magic strong and almost visible. Neville had never felt so small. Not even during his childhood full of relatives trying to prove him magical.
He shook his head. To keep thinking of them made him recall the lady in the red scarf. The lady, with hurried out apologies and unusual attractiveness, obsessed him. It wasn't healthy but he couldn't avoid it.
Perhaps, he thought, a walk through the vast gardens would help.
He stood from the comfortable sofa (too big for the room, for him, for his enforced loneliness) leaving behind cold tea that he had forgotten. The fire was dwindling and he hadn't noticed.
Neville got his cloak, his gloves and his charmed work boots before venturing out to the cold. The gardens had to be reached by a small path that left him exposed to the winds of winter and the cold's bite. Those were the kind of things that made Neville smile sometimes and he would feel strong for being there, doing what he could to amass knowledge of plants and herbs and fungus. He tried to rationalize his need to stay far from the society and most of the time he succeeded.
This time was different because the biting tulips, the ash roses and the weeping lilacs couldn't distract him from the lady in the red scarf.
His own scarf, brown and gold, knitted by Molly Weasley last Christmas, constricted him and he took it off, letting it fall to the muddy ground.
The swift movement reminded him, oddly, of Draco Malfoy and the fortuitous encounter in Diagon Alley. He was with someone Neville had seen before but didn't personally know, a young woman with pretty blue eyes and hair almost as pale as Draco.
The unusual thing there was the apology that came unbidden and unexpected from Draco's mouth. It was said without eloquence and sounded sincere. As soon as Neville accepted it, Draco and his companion went away and Neville looked at their backs as they walked to Flourish and Blotts. Their linked hands made him look away from them, feeling as if he were intruding their life, but before he did he caught Draco's reflection in the crystal window of the store and his swift, easy smile turned into a regretful scowl when he caught Neville's eyes.
He thought that if Draco could apologize for his deeds during the war and his bullying at school, maybe it was time Neville forgave himself for not doing enough.
A dull pain in his pinky made him wince and he put his gloved hands away from the biting tulips that had been uncontrollable as of late. They could have a plague, but Neville's trained eyes and a steady hand found nothing nesting inside the soft red petals that made the red scarf spring into his mind. He was going crazy, he was sure, and it all started with that woman.
Giving up the plants for the time being (what would Professor Sprout say about that!) Neville went back inside.
He decided to go out three days after. It was already the 23rd and Christmas was so close that Neville could already feel the rush of the return to Hogwarts. His lack of hot cocoa and honey was the perfect excuse to venture into the concurred little stores of Diagon Alley.
Only when he got to the Leaky Cauldron he remembered why he didn't want to leave the house. Christmas parties with people who wanted him around but never really tried to get to know him.
"Look, guys! It's Neville Longbottom!" exclaimed a witch with a pointy chin, and that made the rest of the attendants stare at him as he walked past them and into the Alley.
Fame didn't agree with him, and so he shot them an apologetic look and a sad smile. They wouldn't get it: being famous for participating in the Hogwarts Battle was something that made him think back to those days of darkness. People only saw a hero when he saw a defeated man who was mocked even when he stood up to Voldemort.
It was then that he collided with someone.
"I'm sorry," came the ushered apology from the witch in front of him. "Are you alright?"
Neville wasn't. He lost words and gained snowflakes in his heart when he saw the red scarf, the blond hair, the worried brown eyes of the lady in front of him. He nodded with a small smile that perhaps didn't come out right because the woman laughed.
"I crashed into you before, didn't I? What a coincidence!" the woman said, putting her clutch under her left arm and holding out her right hand. "My name is Victoria Greengrass. I suppose you should know the name of the girl who wants to get in your way every chance she has."
"Oh! Nice to meet you," he finally said, getting back his wits and words. This time when he smiled, Victoria smiled easily as well. "I'm Neville Longbottom."
The wind blew in that moment and the red scarf covered her widening eyes. He chuckled as she struggled with it to set it back in place.
"Oh, I recognise that name. You were part of Dumbledore's Army, were you not?" asked Victoria, who was clearly looking impressed but not throwing herself at him like many people did when they remembered how he slew a snake and helped win the battle.
"Yes, but let's not talk about that," he hurried out the words and Victoria actually looked ashamed.
"Sorry, I guess I see it from the outside. My family left the country during the first war, you see. I've lived in Italia my whole life but now I'm back for my cousin's wedding."
"Daphne? I remember a Daphne Greengrass from school. About the same age I am."
The woman nodded, clearly pleased that he made the connection. "She's my cousin, but the one getting married is her younger sister, Astoria. She's to marry Draco Malfoy next month and I'm here to help her with the wedding."
Oh. So that was the witch with Draco when the man apologised. Neville clenched his jaw, not sure if he was angry with Malfoy for what he did or if he was angry because he was brave enough to apologise. That way, Neville couldn't go on hating him, with his regrets clearly tattooed on his arm and shining on his eyes.
"—eville?" Victoria was calling him out, looking uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I must be bothering you. Don't mind me, I must go either way."
She held out her hand again and when he took it this time he felt a soft fluttering in his chest. Snow started to fall down and she looked up, smiling, with her hand still on his own.
"Don't go," he said too quietly.
She looked back at him, her smile telling him she was pleasantly surprised by his offer.
"I have too much to do before the wedding, Neville," she said regretfully, letting him hold his hand for a bit longer as the snowflakes melted upon touching her hair and shoulders. "But I wouldn't mind having coffee with you tomorrow."
Neville smiled. "At noon," he said and she nodded in agreement.
"I only know the Leaky Cauldron," Victoria laughed. "Do they serve coffee?"
Neville snickered. "Perhaps," he said. "But how about Muggle London? A friend showed me a place where they serve coffee and a delicious orange cake."
"It sounds perfect," Victoria said. "Tomorrow at noon in the Leaky Cauldron. From there, to Muggle London. How does that sound?"
He took her hand to his lips and kissed it, enjoying the smile on Victoria's lips. "Like heaven."
When he went back to his home in the woods, with the cold wind blowing and the fire crackling in the fireplace, Neville smiled and closed his eyes. The solitude was still lovely, but now he didn't mind company that much.