Someone Brave and Someone Special
a story seedling
Neville and Hannah find love. It may be horrible, (my story, not love!) but for some weird reason I am tending to like it a lot. Hmmm. Maybe it needs a flower or two… Neville always did like plants.
--
Neville Longbottom paused at the counter and asked . . . whatever that girl's name was . . . if he could talk to the proprietor. "Upstairs, left hallway, last door on the right." Up the creaky old staircase he went, wondering if Tom would be willing to lend out the plants he needed for his fifth year students. Tom's office had been a veritable greenhouse five years ago, the last time he had seen it. What could have changed?
He knocked on the door, peered in. It was a greenhouse. Plants everywhere. "Excuse me? Tom? Are you here?" A young woman about his age poked her head around what seemed to be a large pot of Higantius multiubus.
"Tom no longer runs the Leaky Cauldron. If you are looking for the proprietor, well, that would be me," the girl said. She came around the plant, brushing her long blond hair out of her eyes and wiping her hands on her gardening smock. "I am Miss Ha . . . Neville?"
"Hannah? Hannah Abbot?"
"What . . . why . . . how are you?" she stammered. "Please, sit down, over here." Hannah motioned Neville towards a bench sitting underneath a flowering Itcitis lognathum.
"I'm . . . doing well, how about you? I haven't seen you for . . . what is it now, five years?" Neville began.
"Six, actually. Unless you saw me at the battle. I didn't come back for school after . . ."
"Oh, yes, your mother's . . ."
"Death, yes." Hannah looked away, out the window. "After I . . . left Hogwarts, I came to live here, actually. Tom was my Uncle. I learned a lot from watching the visitors here, all of the comings and goings. But of course there were fears of Imperiuses and Death Eaters, and since Diagon Alley was nearly shut down, we didn't have much business at all. Two years ago Tom died, and he passed the inn on to me. I do the best I can, which doesn't mean much. Proprietor is different from bar tender or maid, so I don't have a huge job other than keeping up on finances and . . . the plants." She ended with a smile. "But tell me about yourself. What are you doing now?"
"I," he began with a laugh, "decided to teach Herbology. I'm professor now, youngest Hogwarts ever had. Which could be a bad thing, seeing the way some of the girls take on about me . . . on account of the battle . . . 'Professor, could you please show us the sword you used?' . . . 'Professor, my older sister says that you are absolutely the most amazing man ever, besides Harry Potter of course. Could I have your autograph?' . . . McGonagall says that she's never seen so many avid Herbology students before." He laughed, the turned serious. "Did you hear about my parents?"
She started. "Yes . . . from the papers."
"Of course, Rita would say something about it. Well, they live on the outskirts of London now; I visit them when I can. Funny, they mentioned you a lot when they first found themselves again . . ."
"They did? I'm . . . glad."
"What do you mean?"
"It's kind of a long story . . ." She looked out the window again.
"I have time." He smiled. She took a deep breath, steadying herself.
"Well, when I first came back from school, they took me to St. Mungo's just to make sure I was not . . . over emotionally exhausted. Turned out that I needed some medication; so I had to return every week. It was quite boring, really, sitting in that waiting room for hours with
people who had just been attacked by dementors or hexed by Death Eaters or just gone insane out of fear. I felt like they shouldn't even be treating me, while all of these others were at the verge of death. But I went. And got tired of the waiting room. So I began to . . . wander the halls. It was interesting, really, and a little frightening. But interesting. I liked talking with the patients. Most of them never had any visitors, on account of Voldemort. So I like to think that I cheered them up a little. My own little battle against fear.
"Then one week I found myself on the fifth floor. The nurses loved me, thought I was so brave to come to visit each week, so they let me into the closed ward. Saw Professor Lockhart, as confused as ever. Spoke with some of the other people there too. Then I saw the two beds at the end of the ward, noticed your picture up on the wall nearby. You never . . . Well, I felt a connection with you. Parents attacked by Death Eaters. Except yours lived . . . But I was glad, for your sake. You could still see them . . . Though I don't know if that really would be better than death. Still, I could understand you more, somehow. Before that I had thought that I would never be able to connect with anyone ever again . . .
"I made it a point to visit them every time I went to St. Mungo's. I would tell your mother about Hogwarts and the DA and my O.W.L.s experience and the war and my fears and . . . how brave you were. I kept my gold coin, the ones we used to communicate with during the DA, so I could kind of tell what was going on at school. I wished so hard I could be there . . . I talked with your father too, about some of the same things, but also about how I wished that I had known my father. Somehow, I think that he and your father were friends, a long time ago.
"I loved talking to your parents. Because they were good listeners. And sometimes, I thought that I could see a glimmer behind their glassed-over eyes, something telling me
'Hannah, you're not alone. We're here. We know.' Because so much of the time I felt horribly alone. So I would go in and hold your mum's hand, and smile at your dad, and somehow I thought that everything would be ok.
"Then one day I saw the coin; the message that the fight was on and everyone should come. And I just had to. So I did. It was horrible and exhilarating and sad and scary all at the same time. Like when Lee and I found that secret tunnel . . . then, then I felt brave. And scared. Oh, I was so scared. Especially when Voldemort came in, with Hagrid carrying Harry. But you . . . you didn't show fear. It amazed me, the fact that you could stand there and say that you would never join him. And then I knew that everything would be ok.
By now she was in tears, and he had a funny look on his face. "Han, let me make you some tea."
"Tea?"
"Tea. Professors of Herbology do know a thing or two about dried leaves and their calming effects." He found a teacup sitting on a shelf next to a little rose bush, and quickly brewed a cup. "Here. Now let me talk for a little while," he said with a smile.
"This explains a lot to me, you understand. When my parents first saw me, after they came back, they knew more about Hogwarts, me, the 2nd war, everything, than I could have imagined! I had no idea how they had received all of that knowledge, I guess I just figured one of the healers had filled them in on what had been happening in the last seventeen years. But you . . . you actually visited them every week? For over a year? Hannah, I . . . I don't know what to say.
"When I was stuck at school during seventh year, with the Carrows and all that rubbish going on, I thought of my parents, what they could be thinking. Gran was in hiding, so she couldn't visit them anymore. They could have felt so hopeless. For that matter, Voldemort could have killed them. Bellatrix was at her best that year; she might have wanted to finish what she started. I hurt for them . . . and I knew I had to survive because of them.
"When I pulled that sword out of the hat, and finished off the snake, I gained something I didn't have before. I gained confidence in myself. Gran had said after the whole Department of Mysteries battle that my parents would be proud, and she said she was proud, and finally I was proud of myself. I knew that I could do what I needed to do. And it made all of the difference."
When he had finished, she looked over at him. He gave her a half smile. And a tear rolled down her face. "Oh, Nev!" she sobbed as he wrapped his arms around her. "I was so scared that whole year. I didn't know what to do, what to say, what to feel. And when it was over, still I didn't know what to do. I had to stay here and help Tom, help the people who began pouring into the shop. When all I wanted to do was find your parents and cry with them . . . and find you. But I didn't know if you cared . . . like that."
He held her close, and then looked down into her blue, blue eyes.
"Han, remember fourth year? Remember? After the spider incident? When you came up to me and told me that you thought I was so brave to stand up there. I had just told myself that I was the worst coward on earth, but you told me that I was brave. That was when I knew that you were something special. Granted, I didn't talk much. Not until the end of fifth year did I come out of that shy shell. But I . . . watched out for you. Not in a creepy way, but in a guardian way. An "I'm not going to let anything happen to you" way. Because you deserved it."
"You really mean it? I'm . . . special?" she whispered.
"You are more than special . . . you are precious. And I will never let you forget."