There he was again, standing on the floor in front of the big painting on a carpet that he had become far too familiar with over the years. This would not be the first time he would have to curl up on it, trying to fall asleep as good and ill as it went.
He looked up and nervously looked away again. The eyes of the Fat Lady lay heavy on him and he felt his cheeks burn up ever so slightly.
"I can't let you in without a password, boy," she said. Neville hadn't spoken a word to her yet, but she knew him and he knew her, and it was clear to both of them that he did not remember the new password.
If you thought that she had developed a soft spot for him because he had been forced to spent so much time with her when he was locked outside, you were wrong. The words she spoke were harsh and the look she gave him was one that a nobleman gave a beggar at the side of the street. In her eyes, Neville knew, he was nothing but an annoying pest, polluting the hall in which she hung. She did not like him.
In a moment of panic, Neville did the one thing you should never do.
He looked up and started pleasing with the Fat Lady, panic clear in his voice.
"No, please Fat Lady, you know who I am. Please let me in. The castle is so cold at night and the Bloody Baron told me he'd keep me company the next time I was locked outside."
Goosebumps ran up Neville's skin when he thought about it. There was nothing as frightening as the ghost prowling the castle when you were trying to sleep in a freezing hallway on a carpet that stung you skin in such a way that after a few minutes of lying on it, you'd become convinced it was trying to eat you. They appeared out of nothing, looking like apparitions out of your nightmares. The worst thing was most hung around for a little while, amused or curious at the sight of him lying scared witless on the ground.
The Bloody Baron had always been the worst with his grim face and bloodied robes. Half a dozen times he had woken Neville up when he had passed him and Neville had thought a man had come to murder him in his sleep.
"Please let me in." His voice sounded almost as desperate as he felt.
The fat lady looked him up and down. "And how am I to know that you are not a fake, except by the password?" she asked.
He felt tears slip into his eyes and blinked furiously. Today had been such a good day too. despite….
"Doesn't mine not knowing the password not prove that I am who I appear to be?"
"You're going to have to work harder than that, boy," the Fat Lady said. "I am not so easily fooled."
Neville knew that she was irritated. She was always irritated when someone tried to gain entrance without the password. She took it as a personal slight. She would not abandon her duty. It was the password or no entrance. Neville had learned this the hard way.
All hope of a warm bed and sitting in the glow of the fire in the common room left him and Neville's knees buckled out from under him. He had the feeling that if the Bloody Baron would come now to 'keep him company', he would burst out in tears, like he had the first time he had been locked outside.
When the Bloody Baron turned up a few minutes later, that was exactly what he did.
The Fat Lady quickly shooed the baron away, looking a little flustered at Neville's reaction. Hot tears ran over his cheeks and though he wasn't whaling, his tiny frame was convulsing with sobs.
"What's wrong boy," she asked once the Baron had left through the wall.
Neville didn't seem to hear.
"Boy," she repeated.
It was how she called him, just like he called her the Fat Lady. They didn't know each other's name.
"Boy!" she snapped. She wasn't used to being ignored.
Neville stopped sobbing and look up at her. Her image was twisted by his tears, and she looked thin and blurry to him, like he was seeing her through a distortion mirror.
"Yes?"
"I asked what was wrong," she tried to sound impatient and annoyed, and failed horribly.
Neville looked away. "Nothing," he said, his tears growing again.
"Don't lie to me, boy," she said. "I thought I already told you I am not fooled easily."
Neville said nothing. He did not want to say it. It was embarrassing and he had been embarrassed enough if front of the Fat Lady. He did not need to explain himself to the person who had made him stay in the cold all night, just so she could say she had done exactly what Dumbledore had told her to do.
He remained quiet.
The fat lady continued to look at him waiting for him to answer her. She reminded him of a mother, waiting on her child to admit he had stolen the missing cookie.
It made him tear up again and the hot tears propagated.
"Boy?" The fat lady gave in first. Her voice was uncertain for the first time Neville had ever heard.
"I'm afraid of the dark," he whispered, sobs wrecking through him. "I hate it. Everything can creep up on you on any given time, until it's close enough that you are unable to defend yourself against it."
He leaned his back against the rough castle wall and pulled his legs up against himself, burying his head into his knees, unable to handle the spoken words, even though they had come from his tongue. Sometimes, it didn't matter who had said the words, the only thing that mattered were the words spoken and how they stung because they were so on target.
"Oh deary," the fat lady said. For the first time Neville had heard, her voice was comforting.
Neville didn't doubt for a moment that the next thing he said would be her gossip to her fellow portraits, but he said it anyway. He needed to get it off his chest. He needed to tell someone. Anyone.
"I've been for as long as I can remember," he said. "Especially this night of the year."
He reconsidered his words. "No, that isn't how I should say it, is it." He hiccuped and he showed a small, sad smile. The Fat Lady was staring at him, as if contemplating whether he had turned mad or not. He did look the part. His hair was dishevelled and his smile slowly turned into one resembling the smile people imagined merlin's mad smile to be while he laughed, madness overtaking him, casting thunder and lightning down on those who had begun walking the path of darkness.
"This night, thirteen years ago," Neville started, meeting the Fat Lady's eyes. A dead calm had transcended over him, momentarily pushing the fear and grief away.
"My parents were driven mad."
There. He had said it.
His tears returned and he buried his face back into his knees. He began seeing stars. His eyes hurt and he was pressing them too tightly to his knees, but he couldn't stop.
"You're the Longbottom boy." It wasn't a question.
Neville said nothing.
"It must be lonely," the Fat Lady said. It was becoming increasingly hard to breath and his robes were getting soaked, sticking to his face.
"I knew your parents from back when they were students here. I was quite fond of your dad, actually. Frank was his name, wasn't it." She didn't pause for him to answer. Neville lifted his face, trying to look at the portrait, but all he saw was blurry red and pink, distorted through his tears. He steadied himself by putting his hands on the rough carpet.
"I remember him." She paused. Neville tried to dry his eyes away. He wanted to look and see if the Fat Lady meant what she was saying, if she was genuinely trying to comfort him.
"He used to be the prefect that led the first years here. Never broke a rule unless it involved that girly he was involved with."
"You remember him well," Neville said. He tried to make his voice sound strong, he really did, but it still came out as a beaten whimper.
The next thing that happened, Neville could only describe as an displacement activity. It was a term he had learned from Hagrid. The path a creature takes when he does not know what to do. He is torn between two behaviours and can't pick one, and thus jumps to a third, completely unrelated behaviour.
She had been trying to comfort him, and now she was compelled to defend herself against his words, denying she known and liked his father. Not knowing which road to take, she choose to go right through the brush between.
The Fat Lady looked at him sharply. "I do. Now don't think that I'm going to give you any special treatment just because I used to be fond of your father. I am not going to let you in without the password, no matter what you say."
Yes, the path she cut for herself was that of anger.
Neville shook his head and buried his head back into his knees. He didn't want to have her wrath on him. He didn't want to hear her talk about his parents. He didn't want to sit in front of the portrait on the rough red carpet for the whole night. He knew the Bloody Baron would be back.
He didn't know how long he sat there, waiting for it all to go away. It must have been a long time, because by the time he heard the creaking he had been hoping for all night, he was no longer crying. He only then became aware that he wasn't doing anything any more. He was just sitting there.
"Neville?" he heard a familiar voice say. "What are you doing out here so late?"
Neville looked up and saw it was Ron who had come wandering outside in the dead of night. He was still wearing his orange Chudley Cannons sweater which he used for sleeping. It wasn't time for class yet.
Neville told him how he had been locked out again, hoping his face didn't betray he had been crying.
Ron took a long look at his face, but didn't say anything about it.
"I was going out to get some candy. I'm hungry and want something delicious in my stomach before going to bed again," Ron answered Neville's questioning look.
"Go on in. I'm heading for the kitchens," Ron said, gesturing to the portrait hole.
Neville gave him a grateful smile and climbed through to the common room.
Only when he sunk into one of the armchairs in front of the low burning fire did he feel himself relax, if only just a little.
AN:
A one shot about our dear Neville and our favourite portrait, the Fat Lady. Never wondered what happened while Neville was locked outside?
This is supposed to take place in Neville's (And Ron's) Second year. And why does Ron know where the kitchens are, you ask. Well, that's because I told him just for this special occasion. Don t worry, I obliviated him afterwards.