Disclaimer : Me not own anything (look at my wonderful angliche!)

Chapter I: Down the rabbit hole.

In which some people would have been better off not leaving their beds.

October 31st, Neville decided as he poked a potato with his fork in the great hall, wasn't a day he liked. For several reasons, that all stemmed from this particular night.

The first being the Dark Lord's fall.

While Neville never was one of his supporters, far from it, His disappearance and the Potters' death caused two things : The loss of his own parents to the wand of the demented Bellatrix Lestrange née Black and the creation of Harry Potter's myth. Because of those two elements, Neville has been subjected to an immense amount of pressure from both his family and the pureblood society in general. If a measly half blood (It didn't matter if said halfblood's parents were amongst the best and brightest of their age, often thought the boy cynically while he received the 'proper' instruction) could do it, so could the Heirs. Following this, a contest between pureblood families took place, the so called adventures of Harry Potter acting as a reference. As of now, no one managed to wrestle a dragon at age nine. Rumor has it that the Malfoy tried with a boy named Orion, supposedly younger brother of Draco. The dragon ate him instead. Well, it was written in the Quibbler, so it couldn't be true, right ?

Another problem was Lily Potter, née Evans. She was the figure brandished by the muggleborn equalists as the true vainquisher of He-who-must-not-be-named, and became the symbol of the separation of the Light and the Dark. As an enchantment mistress, well on her way to the ancient runes masteries and a woman slightly lacking on wizarding morals, she could have used dark magic, like human sacrifice or other things as unsavoury, to stop him, which divided even more the noble houses, leaving the Light divided in three parts; pro-pureblood who refused the Evans theory, those who thought that Lily won using dark magic, and a bunch of fools that thought the Dark Lord was vainquished by Pure Love. In the End, the 'Grey' side had to cut in and affirm that it was Potter that defeated Him before Light and Dark started to fight magically over the question. The tensions between purebloods and muggleborns increased because of that though, and Neville had to often pay the price for it at school, being a pureblood from the Light side, slytherins decided he was a muggle lover thus started mercilessly bullying him. As if his gran's desperate attempts to raise him as proper pureblood heir uncle Algie's repeated attempts to 'bring out his magic ' (read, get him out of the way to get the inheritance) weren't already enough to make him into an introverted person, that definely did.

More people joined the tables now, but Neville didn't see his bushy haired friend, Hermione Granger, here. Their friendship wasn't one of the strongest here, both children keeping the other at arm's length for fear of being hurt, but it was still enough to comfort them somehow. The fact Hermione helped him not to get killed during potions was a nice bonus. He was about to leave to the tower when he heard Lavender Brown, a fellow gryffindor first year speak of the missing girl.

"...and I looked before coming here, she's still at it !"

Neville looked at the blonde haired girl, who was visibly engrossed in her conversation with her best friendand roommate, Parvati Patil, he reminded himself, breathed in deeply to summon his courage and tapped her lightly on the shoulder, attracting both their attention. Feeling like a deer under the headlights, he forgot what he was here for during a moment, before shaking his head, clearing his thoughts.

"A-ah! Erm... Sorry. I'm looking for Hermione, a-and... I wasn't trying to be rude! But I kind of heard you conversation. Sorry. You wouldn't happen to know where she is, would you ?"

The girl looked at him, with the same predatory glint his gran had in her eyes when she saw good gossip material and he felt the need to shrink away from her. He chastised himself, he was a lion on a mission! He couldn't run away because of the older girl who was giggling at him , a demented look in the face while the feminine quidditch players were cooing at him and their fingers seemed to extend like claws ready to pinch his round cheeks to the death and ohmerlin why did he have to want to play hero again ? And Trevor the coward left him to face that trial alone, AGAIN.

"But of course I know where your girlfriend is! You know, Ron told her that she didn't have any friends and Harry Potter agreed with him, poor thing has been crying all of the afternoon in the girls' bathroom. You're going to cheer her up right? Right ?!"

His survival instinct went in maximum alert and he excused himself, running towards the girls' restroom followed by creepy giggles. The day he'd understand girls would be the day he'd become a competent wizard. Several minutes later, he finally arrived in front of the Forbidden Room, where no man would dare to enter, lest he be ripped to pieces by a bunch of enraged furies, or mocked by his fellow males for the rest of his life. The girl's restroom, from where he could here sniffling noises, probably from his friend.

Courage, all of gryffindor already thinks you're going to confess your undying love to her, it can't get any worse than that.

Squaring his shoulders, determination swelled in his chest and he tried to enter confidently , before tripping on his own feet, failing pathetically at his given objective. Or did he ?

He heard someone laughing weakly and turned his head, still on the ground, to see Hermione.

Red faced, eyes puffy and full of tears, a running nose and her hair even puffier than usual, she wasn't really a sight for sore eyes right now. The brunette seemed to remember where they were and put her hands on her hips, trying to sound stern, her hiccups ruining the effect.

"Why are you here ? This is the girl's toilets, you could get in trouble if someone caught you there." After a moment, she added hesitantly, trying to pass it as an afterthought "Do ... Do you need help to get up ?"

Neville groaned a bit and shifted, slowly getting back on his feet. The Hermione he knew would already have used a leviosa to get him up without asking him. Whatever words Weasley used, they were far more effective than even he would have thought.

"It's okay, I'm just getting acquainted with the floor. It's much cleaner than the boys', I'll have to send my compliments to the house elves." Was what he wanted to say. what got out , though, was far less sarcastic.

"It's okay. Err, I was looking for you. I... I heard about what Ron said. I know I'm not the best friend around, probably the worst even. I mean I'm pretty stupid, I can't get any spell or potion right, I'm not handsome and famous , or with a big and warm family, I will never be any of those things b-but Hermione..." He breathed deeply, his head spinning because of the stress. Why was talking to a girl that bloody hard?!" It hurts that you decided I didn't matter to you because two of our housemates said so. Even though we aren't the closest, you matter enough to me that I went after you... And I've probably overstayed my welcome so I'll wait outside."

After his inspired speech, our hero went out of courage and scrambled towards the corridor, where he bumped into someone that revealed himself to be Percy Weasley. Who probably heard everything he said if the approving nod he was giving him was any indication. The prefect turned his attention to Hermione, who apparently followed Neville, a handcherkief having mysteriously appeared in his hand and motionned to the two of them to follow him.

"We have an emergency, you two , come with me to the common room."

The two first years walked after him towards the end of the corridor when Hermione , ever the curious one, decided that what Percy told them wasn't enough to her.

"Excuse me, but what is the emergency?"

Neville, having smelled a fetid odor behind him turned around, paled dramatically and squeaked the answer "T-Troll..."

The redhead nodded "Exactly, a troll infiltrated the school. The professors have put the school on lockdown and gone to deal with it in the dungeons. Wait, how did you..?"

Sadly enough, the prefect never could finish his sentence, Neville pushing his housemates towards the stairs with all his feeble might and whispering urgently.

"There's a mountain troll right behind us!"

The three decided that making a run for it was a very good idea when they all got to see the beast, who was looking at them, seeming particularly hungry. It finally understood that its prey had remarked it and started to run after them while they reached the middle of the stairs. Sadly, while it wasn't normally quick, the average troll lived in mountains, thus more adapted to move on accidented terrain. Like stairs.

Percy was dragging the scared first years with him after having sent a message to the professors when he noticed that the troll's speed had increased, since it used all of its four limbs to climb after them. He did the only thing he could think of, freezing the stairs after them to make it slip ,with moderate success, as it slowed down a bit, not abandoning the chase either.

There was a problem though, because the castle was on lockdown, every door was magically closed, so efficiently that an alohomora wouldn't open it. That's how our three exhausted students found themselves trapped, a locked door on one side, and an angry troll on the other. Percy looked over his shoulder and saw that Neville was out of it. Cursing, he took a deep inspiration and lifted his wand with as much assurance as he could muster. No way he was dying there, there was too much he wanted to do, ace his OWLS and NEWTS, ask Penelope out, outprank the twins and eventually become minister of magic ! Magic would be useless to fight it, there had to be a way to escape it. The beast was tall enough, it might work , if it didn't though...

The redhead shook his head and readied himself. The troll was starting to move, it was his signal.

Running towards the troll, he ducked under the incoming club and casted aguamenti then glacius to allow him to slide behind it from between its legs.

"Accio, Hermione! Accio Neville!" Once he got up, the first years were besides him. He grabbed both of them and was making a run towards the stairs when something appeared in his peripheral vision. He could only cast a basic protego in time and that was what probably saved his life when the troll's blow projected the three of the towards another dead end, one that ironically had a tapestry of a man clubbed to death by trolls.

Percy couldn't stifle the scream that went out of his throat when felt the club break through his shield, his wand and his arm. Actually he didn't feel too bad, but yet again, he had wool in his ears, his head was swimming and he was seeing fireflies everywhere. Ah, someone was carrying him ? That was nice of them, he'd have to thank them or his mother wouldn't let him live it down.

As a matter of fact, Neville (who had been waken up by the accio) and Hermione were trying to carry the prefect, who was too out of it to do it himself, towards a door Hermione saw but the troll was catching up to them quickly. Hermione reminded herself of what she read in a book .

One can turn his body into steel, but not his eyes. It was not to be taken literally in this case, but it did make her notice that an obvious weak point of the troll was his eyes.

She aimed her wand at its head and casted the most powerful light spell she knew while covering her eyes with her arm. Luckily enough, Neville was too focused on getting Percy to the door to look at what Hermione was doing, and the prefect slipped into inconsciousness, which kept them from beig blinded by the intense light generated by the first year. The problem was that now, Hermione too looked on the verge of unconsciousness. Neville didn't know how he did manage to carry both of them, later, his fellow first year would introduce him to the joys of adrenalin and human chemistry in general, but to him, right now, all that mattered was the satisfying click he heard when the door was locked behind them, and the fact it didn't break under the troll's blows.

Then everything went black and the gryffindors fell for what seemed to be an eternity.

As he landed hard on the ground Neville saw several people here, he couldn't hear everything and his vision was fading.

"... you here ?!"

"Please... Rose...down"

A pair of armored feet went into his field of vision and a calloused hand lifted his head, allowing him to see an auburn haired woman who was crouching next to him. the last thing he saw was her bandaged face and the eye tatoo on her forehead. Her lips twisted into an awkward smile as she spoke to the unconscious boy, ignoring the old man and furious woman behind her.

"There you are, I was waiting for you."

A.N.: Eight times. Eight. Fricking. Times. I had to rewrite it from the start because the file disappeared. Seriously, from it simply disappearing, to me losing my USB key, to my computer dying on me, it's getting ridiculous! Dat's why I'm posting it before making the other chapter , to be sure that this time, it does NOT disappear. Besides, it's not like anyone will read it ~

So, yeah, Neville Hermione and Percy will be a time, because I think they are very interesting characters. We have Hermione, the girl genius, bookworm and lonely, the wizarding world having betrayed the expectations she built reading books (and hey, the Silmarillon and Lord of the rings were already out, no chance she did not read it), Neville , infamous cowardly lion, who couldn't count on anyone but himself for most of his life before Hogwarts and Percy. Oh, Percy. So righteous, hard headed and polite he seems anally retentive. He's probably the most underdevelopped of them all, and garnered lots of undue hate. I mean, his heart is in the right place, he never joined the death muchers, went to fight at Hogwarts and his own brother died on him, in front of him, because he dared to express himself while cracking a joke.

Fable crossover, we already saw three important characters, and I'll put in lots of hints to the plot that hardcore Fable (TLC) players should be able to notice.

Constructive reviews are welcome, flames will be used to melt marshmallows.