Neville's Hope
My name's Neville Longbottom. That's right, I'm the son of Frank and Alice Longbottom-the people who were tortured to insanity by You-Know-Who's followers. But I try not dwell on that, I don't even remember it. I don't like talking about it, I visit them daily with my Gran-she's the one who looked after me all these years. The healers say they'll never recover, but I believe in hope.
It's my first year at Hogwarts. And I'm scared. I don't think I'm good enough. I mean I've had a lot happen to me in an attempt to make me more magical. Take this story- when I was eight, I was held upside down out of my bedroom window by my great uncle Algie. He actually let go of me because he was asked if he wanted a cake by my great aunt. Really, that's a good story-maybe I should tell other pupils about it? I hope they'll like it.
But anyway where was I? Oh yes-I'm Neville Longbottom. A name I hope Hogwarts will remember-I don't know how or why, but they'll remember it. The reason I believe this is I hope.
My story really starts the day I got the letter- everyone in my family was so pleased, I received gifts from them all. I guess they thought I didn't have enough magic to get in. The best was from Uncle Algie; a toad. This may not sound like much as yes, toads are out of date, but to me it was a rite of passage- I could start my journey to being a great herbologist. I really love plants (my garden is the result of that, I hope Gran will feed them all?), but that toad was special to me so I decided to name him after someone else who was special to me; Trevor, my Granddad. He died in front of me; my Gran thought it would do me good to get some closure on his passing by watching him die, but really it just affected me emotionally inside.
Trevor though doesn't like me; he keeps on trying to run away. But I'm going to make him like me even if it takes all of my time in Hogwarts. I was ready to go when he tried another break for freedom. It didn't work, but it left us a few minutes late, Gran kept on glaring at me because of that. We got through the barrier no trouble, but Trevor immediately hopped away from me. As I told Gran she sighed with exasperation, but that wasn't the interesting thing, as she sighed a boy passed us. He looked a little weird, weirder than usual I mean in the Wizarding World. He had black hair, a scrawny face, broken glasses and baggy old clothes. He didn't seem like much, but he was trying to absorb everything extremely quickly. I assumed he was just a muggle born. I didn't really take any notice of him though. I was trying to find Trevor at the time, remember? I hoped I could find him.
I didn't really think about the boy again, I was too focused on finding Trevor so I kept on asking everyone by going into each compartment. It was hopeless though, I was finally ready to burst into tears when I went into one of the last compartment. And I saw the boy again, this time he was with a friend. He had flaming red hair and he had a spot of dirt on his face, I asked them if they'd seen Trevor, they hadn't. That was it. The point where I gave up hope. For those few seconds I lost it. But then the boy gave me some of his hope. It didn't do much, but it was enough.
I left them and finished searching the rest of the compartments. Nothing. But before I gave up again I met someone. It was a girl. She had brown bushy hair and large front teeth. "What's up?" She said. She had a bossy sort of voice. Perfect, I thought, she can help me.
"I've lost my toad." I blubbered. I was beside myself with sorrow.
"Cheer up." She said. "Let's check all the compartments. I'm Hermione." She was a bit silly, I thought, I had just done that. But you never know, she gave me hope. I sniffed out my name and we got to work
So we began to work our way back up the train. We got to the two boys compartment again. And Hermione got a little distracted by the red head trying out a spell, but it didn't work. But what was interesting was the names of the boys. Ron Weasley was the red head. I've heard the name before, but he's nothing compared to the scrawny boy. Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. I was in the presence of greatness. But he was so normal, he seemed a little embarrassed by the attention Hermione was showing him. He was amazing.
Hermione dragged us off after a little while. She couldn't stop talking about Harry. I sort of tuned her out. But Harry stuck with me. I don't know why. I think it was because of Trevor really. I think he knew this would happen and ran away because he wanted me to meet Harry. At least I hope he did.