The Language of Flowers
Neville Longbottom, leader of the Hogwarts resistance, hero of the final battle, and post-war Auror (albeit a reluctantly co-opted one), had had enough of fame. Specifically, he had had enough of the type of fame that the war had earnt him, the type of fame which made people ask him to rehash things over and over that he'd much rather forget, and which made him feel that the rest of his life – the much greater part unless unforeseen disaster intervened – could only be second best, unexciting, a let-down after what had gone before. Ron Weasley found him, one cold afternoon at the beginning of January, in the small corner office that had been given over to "the Auxiliaries" as the co-opted younger Aurors were called almost officially, tossing balled up parchment into the rubbish bin and frowning darkly.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked, perching on the edge of the room's single desk. "You look like you lost a Galleon and found a Sickle."
Neville screwed up another piece of parchment and swivelled around in his chair to glare at his colleague and friend.
"How do you deal with it?" he demanded. "You and Harry? You don't seem to care that the only thing people want to talk about with you is Voldemort and the war and – and everything!" he emphasised the last word by lobbing the parchment across the room, missing the bin and toppling a precariously balanced broomstick that had been propped up beside it. "I spent all morning interviewing this old woman who claimed to know where some of Riddle's people were holed up. Turns out, she knows sod all, but that didn't stop her asking for all the gory details about Hogwarts last year and the battle. And then, if you believe it, she asked me for my bloody autograph!"
Ron laughed. He couldn't help it – the look on Neville's face was so disgusted. But he sobered rapidly enough, seeing that his friend was in deadly earnest.
"Just let it wash over you, mate," he advised. "It's early days still. The people who matter know that that stuff isn't important."
Neville scowled. "Easy for you to say," he growled. "You've got loads of those people. Who have I got? A doting grandmother and a host of elderly relatives who like nothing better than boasting about me and showing me off to their friends, and a handful of friends who are all trying to move on with their own lives and to forget the same things I am."
"We're all trying to move on, mate," Ron said, crossing the room to the corner and prodding the kettle with his wand to make it boil. He made two mugs of tea, plonked one down in front of Neville, before taking the other seat, tea in hand, and surveying him with a frown.
"I'm not sure I get what you're on about," he said bluntly. "We all have things we'd rather forget. We're all trying to get on with things. We're all dealing with… stuff. It's not like you don't have any friends who understand. What about the DA? What about us? What about Luna?"
Neville shook his head. "Luna's cool," he said. "But we split up ages ago. You know that. We're still good friends. And so are you and Harry and Hermione and the rest of them. But it's not enough."
Ron took a noisy slurp from his mug.
"Sounds to me," he said, "as if you don't know what you want. Perhaps if you work that out, you'll be happier with life in general."
Neville sipped his own tea. "Oh," he said, "I know what I want. It's getting it that's the hard part."
Ron drained his mug and set it down with a bang. "My mum always says," he said, standing up and heading for the door, "that if you know what you want and don't do anything about making it happen, then it's your own fault if it doesn't. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to see Kingsl – the Minister, I mean – about this report, and then I have an evening of relaxation and Chinese food planned with a certain young lady. I would ask you to join us, but I doubt you'd want to play gooseberry." He sketched a wave and was gone, leaving Neville glowering at his retreating back.
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Neville couldn't sleep. Ron's words kept going round and round in his head. "If you know what you want and don't do anything about making it happen, then it's your own fault if it doesn't." He knew what he wanted, so what could he do to make it happen? The first part was easy enough, if he had the nerve to do it. ("So much for being a hero!" he thought ruefully.) The second would take a lot more thought.
By the morning, he had a letter written and a half-formed plan - or maybe just a hope – in his mind.
The letter was delivered first thing ("Before I have time to chicken out!" as he phrased it to himself) and he was unsurprised when the Minister himself sought him out later that morning.
"Are you sure about this, Neville?" he asked, getting straight to the point. "You know there's a still a lot of work to do, and we can use a good man like you."
Neville had had time to build up his resolve by then, and his voice was firm as he replied.
"I'm sure," he said. "This is never want I wanted for my life. It's time I moved on, sir."
Kingsley smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "Less of the 'sir' if you please," he said warmly. "I'll be sorry to see you go, but you have a right to your own life. Merlin knows, you've earnt it. Good luck to you."
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Hogsmeade felt like home, more like home than his gran's house had done for a very long time. Despite the cold, Neville felt a warm glow inside as he set off down the familiar road to Hogwarts. This was where he was meant to be – and where, if he was lucky and played his cards right – both parts of his dream would start to come true.
Hogwarts itself felt less like home than he had expected. The single room they had allocated him halfway up Gryffindor Tower felt small and lonely. Eating at the Gryffindor table felt wrong with so many familiar faces missing, even though Hermione was there, and Parvati and Ginny, and younger students he had come to know well in ln that last awful year when the Carrows had ruled. Terry Boot, still limping, and Padma Patil came over from the Ravenclaw table to welcome him back – "We eighth years have to stick together," Terry said, shaking his hand heartily – but no one crossed the short distance from the Hufflepuff table, and Neville could not see the face he was looking for there.
And he had ghosts to lay. That first evening, he toured the castle and grounds, stopping at every place where a small gold plaque set in the ground or the wall bore the name of a fighter. Fred Weasley. Colin Creevey. Remus Lupin. Michael Corner. People who had been his friends. People who had died.
And, by the plaque in the corner of the Charms corridor bearing the name "Susan Bones", he found her. The sight of her froze the air in his chest as the names of his dead comrades had not.
Hannah turned and smiled at him, and she was even more beautiful than he remembered. Neville felt his face flush and knew that he was gaping at her like an idiot. He shut his mouth with a snap.
"I heard you were coming back," Hannah said. "I was glad. I didn't think being an Auror was right for you."
Neville mumbled something incoherent. In his imaginings they had met in the rebuilt entrance hall, in the Great Hall or – even better – in the sunlit grounds outside the greenhouses, with him holding an armful of exotic plants, looking busy and efficient and knowledgeable. He would have known what to say then; he had even had speeches prepared. He had never imagined their meeting taking place in a dark corridor where their friend had died, with him still in his crumpled travelling clothes and Hannah with tears on her face. She smiled again, not seeming to mind that what he had said made no sense at all.
"I have to go," she said quietly. "I have a Transfiguration essay to finish, and being an eighth year doesn't make McGonagall any easier on you if your homework is late."
She touched his arm gently as she passed him. He rubbed the place absent-mindedly, staring at the plaque bearing Susan's name without really seeing it. Hannah was half – more than half – of the reason he had come back here, and he had blown it at the first meeting. He couldn't believe his own stupidity.
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The next few weeks were tougher than he had expected. He had thought that coming back to Hogwarts would be just like picking his old life again, that it would seem natural and normal. But too much had changed for that to happen. He had changed too. He was no longer the boy who was terrified of Professor Snape, who doubted his abilities in anything but Herbology, who always felt himself a second best Gryffindor, someone who really should have been placed in Hufflepuff, whatever the Sorting Hat had thought. The returning eighth years each had their own timetable, tailored to their needs and abilities, which meant that Neville spent most of his time in the greenhouses, although Professor McGonagall had insisted he continue with Charms lessons too. He was grateful to her for that, because Charms lessons were the only time he really saw Hannah. The formal Herbology lessons he took were with the seventh and eighth year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, and when Hannah was in the greenhouses for her own lessons, he was usually elsewhere, repotting some exotic tuber, sorting seeds, or puzzling over the differences between the bulbs of Silencing Snowdrops and Crackling Crocuses. There was a small room near the Transfiguration classroom set aside as a sort of common room for the returning eighth years, but Hannah seemed to spend very little time in there, and Neville himself preferred the familiarity of Gryffindor Tower, even in the absence of so many of his friends.
By the end of the month, he had realised that he was going to get nowhere by bumping into Hannah and striking up conversation. He needed to take more decisive action. He needed a plan. Valentine's Day was approaching – the girls in the lower years already seemed more giggly than usual, and one daring fifth year Ravenclaw, egged on by her friends, had even asked him to go into Hogsmeade with her the weekend beforehand. He had turned her down of course. He was only interested in one girl.
Hermione found him one evening in the library, surrounded by scribbled sheets of parchment, with ink on his hands and his cheek, and a look of sheer despair in his eyes.
"Neville?" she asked anxiously. "Are you okay? Is it that essay for Professor Flitwick? Can I help?"
Neville looked up at her and grinned mirthlessly. "I've done the essay," he said. "Although Merlin knows what Flitwick will make of it. Charms are not my strong point, whatever McGonagall might think. No, this is – personal."
"Ah!" Hermione managed to put a world of understanding into that single syllable. She dumped the large pile of books she was carrying on the table, and sat down beside him. "Hannah I suppose? Is it?"
"What? How did you know?" Neville half stood up and faced her with a look of horror. "Is it that obvious? Does everyone know?"
Hermione put a hand on his arm and smiled reassuringly. "No, don't worry," she said soothingly. "I sit behind you in Charms. I've seen the way you look at her. I don't think anyone else knows."
Neville heaved a sigh of relief and slumped back into his chair. "I've never felt like this about anyone else," he confessed shakily. "I mean, I thought I loved Luna once, but it was nothing like this. Nothing! He slammed his hand down on the desk to emphasise his point, causing people studying at the next desk to look up in surprise, and Madam Pince to approach them looking fierce.
"Come on!" said Hermione, pre-empting anything the irascible librarian might say. "This isn't the place for this. Come on Neville!"
Almost without realising what was happening, Neville found himself in the corner of the eighth year common room, which was fortunately empty, sitting in a comfortable armchair and watching Hermione, who was pacing to and fro in front of the fire and frowning.
"What we need to do is play to your strengths," she announced.
"What?" Neville demanded, slightly irritably."Herbology?"
Hermione turned to him, smiling broadly. "Of course," she said.
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Valentine's Day was bright and sunny. The flurry of owls bringing mail lasted twice as long as usual, and all around the hall there were cards, sequins, heart-shaped balloons (many playing tunes or spraying confetti at anyone nearby) and the squeals of excited girls – and a few excited boys. The eighth years, who tended to congregate at the ends of their respective house tables, looked on slightly condescendingly, not expecting to be any part of the shenanigans of the younger students. Until two large owls flew in bearing a bunch of foliage and flowers, which they dropped in front of the astonished – and slightly embarrassed – Hannah.
The bouquet, once she had recovered sufficiently to examine it, was not simply a bunch of flowers. Hannah frowned over the inclusion of a red apple, a bulb of garlic, a lemon and a bunch of sage amongst the more conventional red roses, carnations and tulips. When she looked up from the flowers, it was to find Neville standing in front of her, slightly pink in the face, and looking both hopeful and nervous.
"I'm no good at words, Hannah," he said quietly. "But a good friend advised me to play to my strengths. If – if you would go out with me this evening, I might be able to explain."
Hannah was still flustered, but she smiled up at him. "I'd like that, Neville," she said. "I'd like that very much."
Neville coloured still more, but took Hannah's hand as he smiled down at her.
"I'll meet you in the Entrance Hall at seven," he said.
Hannah nodded, lost for words for the moment.
In the privacy of a corner table at Merlyn's Restaurant in Diagon Alley that evening, she had no such trouble. The bouquet of the morning was joined by a second one, handed over in person by Neville, containing forget-me-nots, white heather and daffodils, surrounded by feathery green ferns. Better still, he presented her with a sheaf of parchment, carefully illustrated and written by hand, explaining the meaning of the flowers and plants he had given to her.
"I thought you said you were no good at words," Hannah said, once he had finished showing her the pages he had prepared with such care for her. "These are beautiful."
Neville shook his head. "I'm good at plants," he said. "They gave me the words to tell you how much I think of you, how much I want to be with you."
Hannah reached out and touched his face gently. "However you look at it, they are wonderful words," she said softly. "I never knew you felt all that for me. It's amazing. Thank you."
Neville took her hand in his and smiled at her. "I'm not very brave," he told her. "It takes me a while to work up to things. But I'm glad I did."
And then he kissed her.
A/N
The meanings of the different plants Neville gave Hannah were found from several websites, and I apologise if I have misinterpreted them. I tried to use plants summing up both Neville's current feelings and hopes and the history he and Hannah had together.
Red roses, carnations and tulips – love
An apple – healing and friendship
Garlic – courage and strength
A lemon – friendship
Sage – the granting of wishes
Forget-me-nots – memories
White heather – protection
Daffodils – happiness when we are together
Fern - magic