To a dear friend I shall call Prussia, who inspired this fic during a conversation at Dinner.
It had been horrible. Neville hadn't been expecting, when he went to class that day, to see Professor Moody use the very spells that tortured his parents to insanity on spiders in front of him. He managed to pull himself together in class if only to avoid being teased.
He walked around the school for what felt like an hour until he found an empty classroom where he felt confident he could write a letter to Professor Lupin without being interrupted.
He had been writing to Professor Lupin since July of the year before this one. It felt nice to write to someone who believed in him and who had known his parents. It had been awkward at first, but now they wrote like they were old friends. He couldn't share this fear and sadness with anyone else, but he could share it with Professor Lupin.
He walked into the classroom and set his things on the teacher's desk. He pulled a piece of parchment off the stack he always carried around with him and pulled a quill out of the quill box and set to writing.
He hadn't even written a salutation when he noticed the wardrobe across the room was shaking and rattling.
'It's a boggart,' he thought to himself. He put down his quill, pulled out his wand and prepped himself for destroying it. He smiled to himself and let the reminder that he vanquished a boggart before permeate his thoughts. 'You can do this, Neville, you can do this.'
Holding his wand at the ready, he opened the wardrobe door. He was ready to battle Snape again, putting him in his place by putting him in his grandmother's clothes.
But when a shoe and the bottom of a robe appeared, stepping out of the wardrobe, it became quite clear he wouldn't be fighting Boggart-Snape.
The second green velvet slipper exited the wardrobe, bringing out with them the face and body of Bellatrix Lestrange. She wore a cruel twisted smile on her otherwise attractive features.
Neville was unprepared for her arrival. He hadn't expected it and had no idea how to find her amusing. He broke out into a cold sweat, walking backwards from her as she walked forwards towards him.
"What's wrong, little Neville-y-kin?" asked Lestrange, mocking him in a baby voice. Her twisted smile twitched slightly. "Are you scared of your Auntie Bella?"
"Sh-shut up. Go. You aren't real," whispered Neville, stammering, tripping over the desk where he had set his things.
"You know that isn't true Neville. I'm very real. Just ask your parents when you go in to visit them over break," she started to laugh, "Oh, wait, you can't. They're mad aren't they? Stuck in the madhouse. You'll be there next." Her laugh took on the evilest tones Neville had ever heard.
She raised her wand. She pointed it at Neville. Neville closed his eyes. He had no idea if boggarts could perform unforgivable curses.
Suddenly, the door to the classroom opened and Neville heard the sound of footsteps and then a young woman's voice determinedly say the spell. "Riddikulus."
Neville opened his eyes. There was a young, petite, woman with blonde hair standing next to him. He had never seen her before but her pullover made it quite clear she was a Ravenclaw. The boggart which had once been Lestrange was now a small china doll. It still wore her evil grin. Neville let out a small nervous laugh.
"The boggart will change forms in a few moments," the girl reminded him, offering him a hand to help him stand up. "Get your wand at the ready." She had an airy Irish accent that comforted Neville.
The Lestrange doll began to shake and twist around wildly. Soon the doll was gone and in her place there was the crumpled form of a man Neville didn't recognise. He thought the man looked like a slightly seedier Lucius Malfoy. The man's chest didn't move. It was clear he was dead. His hair was the same shade of gold-blond as the hair of the girl standing next to him. She was still holding his hand, so she squeezed it tightly and raised her wand. Her lips formed the word Riddikulus, but no sound came out.
Neville raised his wand as well and muttered the spell, which caused the man's crumpled form to roll over and begin to breathe and snore loudly. This made the girl giggle.
Soon the form of the man began to shake and grow and shrink as it transformed once again. Now it was Crouch Jr. He stood before them, laughing hysterically. After standing, just staring at them for a few seconds, he charged towards them.
"Riddikulus!" shouted Neville, jumping up onto the desk, the young woman following his lead. Crouch was transformed into a running, squealing piglet. Both Neville and the girl laughed loudly as the boggart-piglet ran into the desk. When it hit its head, it transformed again, this time into a woman who very much resembled the woman next to Neville.
"Luna, why didn't you save me?" the boggart-woman asked. She was crying. There was soot and ashes all over her bright pink robes and light blonde hair. A wound on her neck bled with every step she took towards them.
Neville raised his wand, but the young woman, whose name was apparently Luna, put out an arm to stop him.
"I'll do it. You aren't my mummy," she whispered, raising her wand, "And if you were, you would know why I couldn't save you. Riddikulus."
The woman disappeared, now replaced by Snape wearing her robes. The boggart appeared to be getting confused. Neville forced a laugh as did Luna. Crack, it was now a giant piece of mistletoe. Neville, finding mistletoe to be a funny fear, laughed again. Crack, it was an eyeless basilisk, bumping into everything as it tried to reach the desk on which Neville and the girl called Luna stood. This was amusing, so Neville and the girl laughed.
Finally the creature disappeared with a pop.
Neville jumped off of the professor's desk and offered his hands to Luna who, with his help, did the same. Her skirt puffed out as air came from under it, reviling, for a split second, yellow underwear. Neville, being a gallant young man, turned his head away to avoid seeing it.
"So your name is Luna?" he asked, still feeling shaky from the fear the boggart caused.
The girl, who also looked pale and scared, nodded and tried to give him a small smile, "Luna Lovegood. I'm a third year Ravenclaw, pleased to meet you. You're Neville Longbottom. You're a fourth year Gryffindor."
"Erm…" stammered Neville nervously scratching at the back of his head, "I am. How did you know I was in here?"
"I knew there was a boggart nearby," she said as though having a sixth sense about a boggart's location was the most normal thing in the universe. "Dad and I, we live in an old house and there are constantly boggarts all around, so we'll go every Thursday and hunt for them. I do that here too. It also gives me a chance to track down anything people have hidden from me."
Neville wanted to ask her more questions, but he wasn't sure how to, so he finally settled for asking her to the Yule Ball. As a third year, she couldn't go by herself.
"Sorry," she said in her dreamlike voice, "Dad's coming to get me that night to go nargle hunting in Norway. But if you'd like to go to Hogsmead the weekend after next, I could do that. We could get tea or something."
"Alright, that sounds great, Ms. Lovegood," said Neville giving her a small smile and trying not to blush. "I'll meet you by the Great Hall at noon."
END