Sometimes Neville listened to the rest of the boys talking and felt jealous. He knew he shouldn't. He shouldn't. He was famous, after all, wasn't he? He'd defeated Voldemort, hadn't he? So what if he was a terrible wizard and he always forgot things and he was the only one of his roommates without any parents? He was Neville Longbottom, wasn't he? And anyway, at least he had Gran. That was good enough, wasn't it?
But then Ron had all his brothers around all the time and Harry got those long letters from his parents and Seamus's mum sent him stuff all the time, and even Dean's family sent owls back when he sent them letters, though they were muggles so it was mostly just that whoever was home at the time wrote something back quickly before the owl could take off again.
Neville's letters from Gran were all things like, "I found your winter coat, didn't I tell you to pack it?" and "What's this I've been hearing about your Transfiguation grades, young man?" and it just wasn't the same. He was sure his parents wouldn't have been like that. He was sure his parents would have been wonderful, just like everyone else's. Only they weren't. They were dead.
Everybody had wanted to be friends with him when they'd first gotten here - he was the famous Neville Longbottom, the Boy Who Lived! But then they'd found out he was awkward and clumsy and forgetful and nearly a squib and he just hadn't been able to face the way they looked at him. His only real friend was Hermione Granger, because nobody much liked her, either. The problem was that even with Hermione he felt stupid and silly and completely like a failure. She didn't mean to make him feel that way, of course, but she was brilliant, wasn't she? And even though he knew she was just trying to help, she couldn't seem to stop herself from making faces when they studied together that proved she thought he was an idiot, even if she did like him enough to hang out with him.
"Trevor," he said with a sigh, staring at the toad on his pillow, "I don't even know why I bother. I might as well just go home right now and . . . and I don't even know what." The truth was, he couldn't just go home right now. Even if he was brave enough to face down Gran and tell her he was dropping out of school, she'd just send him right back here anyway, whether he wanted to come or not.
He had to go down to the Halloween feast, whether he wanted to go or not, and he had to put on a big fake grin, just like he always did, and pretend he didn't notice the way everyone around him still seemed disappointed that he wasn't better. Shouldn't they be used to it by now, anyway? They'd already been at school for 2 months. Couldn't they just accept that he was a failure and that stopping Voldemort had been a fluke and move on?
Trevor hopped away, disappearing under the bed as he usually did, and Neville couldn't be bothered to chase after him. He might as well go get some dinner, and then maybe he could leave the feast early without anyone noticing. That was likely, right? But no, because he was sure Hermione would sit with him and it would be better that way because the feast wouldn't be as bad, but then it would be worse because he couldn't leave until she did. He got up and went down to the feast and tried to ignore everybody else at the table. He did that a lot, which he felt a little bit bad about. It was one more thing to put on the list of his failures - he wasn't even good with people. He was sort of afraid of them. Maybe a lot afraid of them.
The feast started and Hermione was nowhere to be seen, which was really weird. Just because no one liked her much didn't mean she didn't try to make them like her, and usually a feast would bring the loudest, brightest, sunshiniest Hermione out, rambling about the history of Halloween and the things she'd read lately and trying to be interesting. Which would be great, because it would take the pressure off of him, or at least the attention, and he really did think the things Hermione knew were interesting, at least most of the time.
Mostly, though, Hermione seemed to want to be friends with Harry and Ron instead of with him, which wasn't really surprising. They were the cool kids, like he was supposed to be, with their big fancy wizarding families and Harry's family's money and his position on the Quidditch team and Ron's billion cool older brothers (and Percy), and both of them were better at magic than he was. Granted, everyone seemed to be better at magic than he was, but still. Harry was really quite good, and of course Hermione would want to be friends with him. The feast would probably bring that to the surface, too, because Hermione would be trying harder to impress Harry.
The longer he sat there, the more awkward he felt - and the more he worried about his friend, because she really should be here. After a while, he just couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take being ignored, or the way the others glanced at him as if to check to make sure he hadn't done something to make them stop ignoring him, and he was tired of being alone. He leaned over the table to poke Parvati, who was at least sort of nice to him, though her best friend Lavender usually wasn't. "Hey, do you know where Hermione is? She hasn't come down to the feast yet."
Parvati bit her lip. "Yeah - I . . . kind of saw her crying in the girls' toilets . . . I'm not sure what's wrong, but I'm not sure she's coming, anyway." She looked out of the corner of her eye at Lavender, and Neville had to struggle to keep a straight face. Lavender wasn't so bad, he supposed, but she wasn't the nicest person in their house, either. He wasn't sure why Parvati wanted to be friends with her. Hermione was a much better friend. But then, so was he.
Either way, Hermione crying in a toilet was all the excuse he needed to leave, and that was what he most wanted to do right now, anyway. "Ok, thanks," he answered, smiling weakly at Parvati. "I . . . guess I'll go see if she'll tell me what's wrong." Now he had Lavender's attention, too, and as he walked away from the table, she started giggling and he found himself blushing.
"Well, let her giggle," he told himself. At least he was being a good person. Lavender was only sometimes a good person, and he was one all the time. It was basically the only thing he wasn't a failure at, not that most people cared about whether you were a good person or not. It was a relief to get out of the Great Hall and into the quiet of the corridors, even as he realized that while he could finally get to his classes without getting lost or missing any of the trick steps, he had no idea where the nearest girls' toilet was. He'd just have to figure it out. Hermione needed him. Maybe.
It turned out not to be nearly so difficult as he'd expected. The bathroom was only a little distance away and it had a nice, clear, visible sign, something that was pretty rare around here. He knocked on the door. "'Mione? Are you in there?"
Her voice echoed against the walls as she shouted back, "Go away!" That was a yes, then.
He knocked again. "Are you alone in there?" There was no answer, but he took that as a yes. Someone else would say so if they were in there too, wouldn't they? It took him a moment to work up his nerve, but then he pushed the door open and walked in.
Hermione was sitting in the corner, behind a row of sinks, with her knees curled up against her chest. "I told you to go away, Neville!" she said with a sniffle.
He walked over and sat down next to her. "Yeah, well, I think we both know I'm too stupid to follow simple directions, anyway."
He meant it as a joke, but it didn't sound that way, and Hermione gave him a reproachful look. "You're not stupid Neville. You're just a little slow. I'm sure you'll get it eventually."
It was what she always said, and it was a little irritating and a little depressing and a little untactful, but it meant Hermione was starting to be a little bit like her old self, so he decided he didn't care. "Yeah, probably," he answered, sighing, "I still wish I were more like you, though." That was the sort of thing you told people when you wanted to cheer them up, wasn't it? That you wanted to be like them? It would have made him feel good to think somebody wanted to be like him.
"No, you don't," Hermione answered, bitterly. "You don't hear the way they talk to me. Ron Weasley just said the most awful thing about me. I don't even want to repeat it. And he said I've got no friends."
Neville wasn't really sure what to say to that. He wasn't really sure at all. So he just nudged her gently with his shoulder. "Hey, I mean, you've got me, right? I'm not cool or anything, but if you need somebody to hang out with . . ."
Hermione looked up at him, horrified. "Oh, no! Neville, I didn't mean . . . that's not what I meant at all! Of course we're friends! And of course you're cool, you're . . . I mean . . ." She had picked up on how much he hated being "The Boy Who Lived" with all the expectations that came along with it, but he could tell she was about to say it anyway. And of course she would. It wasn't like there was anything else cool about him.
Even so, it was almost a relief with the gigantic mountain troll burst through the door. Except for the part where the troll was terrifying and might be about to kill them.
Hermione screamed, frozen, but for once in his life, Neville actually acted quickly. He didn't really know what to do, but he didn't have to - his survival instincts put him on his feet in seconds, pulling Hermione along with him, and then he tugged her along with him into the nearest stall, the one at the end. Getting them both around the door and into the stall was difficult and frustrating, and it took far too long, but Hermione seemed to be coming around, now, and between the two of them they eventually managed it.
As he latched the door shut, he just hoped the troll was so stupid or so busy doing whatever it was doing to make that crashing noise that it wouldn't chase them down, because now they were really trapped. The door was the sort that opened into the stall instead of opening outwards, so he leaned his full weight against it, even though he knew that still wouldn't actually keep it closed if the troll wanted in. He might be a little chubby, but he certainly didn't weigh that much. Even so, it was something, and something was better than nothing, especially with their lives on the line.
Hermione leaned against the door, too, which meant that they were crammed closer together than he thought he'd ever been to anyone in his whole life. He bet Lavender would really laugh at them if she saw them now. But it was kind of nice, or at least, it was a little less scary this way, and he found himself reaching for her hand. She grabbed it like it was a lifeline and they both held their breath, listening to the crashing sounds and hoping they wouldn't come closer.
Then another set of footsteps came close enough to hear in the corridor. The door slammed open again, crashing loudly into the wall, and then the familiar voices of their teachers shouted a tangle of unfamiliar spells all at once, and a loud thud shook the room as the troll went down, hard. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, Hermione's identical sigh ghosting over his face, and then they both realized how close they really were and let go of each other's hands, twisting themselves around to get out of the stall and springing apart once they were out in the bathroom itself.
McGonagall's face as she looked toward them should probably have been terrifying, but now that he saw the troll lying there, he couldn't feel afraid of anything. He started to laugh in relief, and Hermione quickly caught the bug and they were right back to being close again, holding onto each other to stay upright.