A/N Thank you to everyone who had already read, reviewed, followed and favourited this story.

The update schedule going forward will be roughly posting once or twice a week.

Year One Chapter Two

Neville reflected that his first year had not got off to the best start. Against all odds in the beginning it had seemed like it was going to be fine, temporarily lost toad notwithstanding. He had been sorted into Gryffindor he had made friends and he was happy with his roommates. The highlight of those first few days had been his first Herbology class, it had been fantastic, all those hours with Uncle Algie in the greenhouses of Longbottom House must have paid off as Professor Sprout had claimed he had a natural talent in front of the whole class. Neville wasn't sure he had ever been labelled as having a talent before let alone a natural one.

Then he had his first Potions class and everything derailed, the experience was sure to give him nightmares for weeks to come. It was his first time in the dungeons of the castle, it didn't even feel like the same building down there. It was as if all the warmth had been removed from the air, the cheer right along with it, just by moving down a couple of flights of stairs.

They had all moved into the room and sat down on the benches when the classroom door was swung open with a large slam and Professor Snape had moved into view. He had seen him before of course, at mealtimes and such, he had certainly heard enough about him, how intimidating the other Gryffindors had found him. None of that prepared Snape for how scared he would be with Snape up close.

Neville catalogued Snape's features like a child listing the characteristics of their most feared monster. When Snape moved his black robes billowed, flaring around him like a dark magical aura. His dark almost black greasy hair fell lankly to his shoulders, he had a large hook nose and his face seemed permanently set in a sneer, though slim he was tall and his very presence was intimidating. Most frightening to Neville was his disposition, Snape seemed to exist in a permanent state of barely holding on to the last fragment of his temper, an eruption into rage likely at the smallest provocation.

When they had been assigned their task and the students got to work he could tell how daunting the other students found Snape by how quiet the room had gone, but no one seemed to find the sour Potions Master as totally incapacitating as he did.

Neville was working with Seamus Finnigan which he considered was probably not the best combination. Where Neville was supposedly a natural with plants Seamus had the same innate gift for pyrotechnics. That said it was still Neville that made the first mistake. He couldn't help it, he was unnerved by the way the Professor stalked around during the lesson like a caged tiger, waiting for one of them to make a mistake. Despite how many times he attempted to calm himself he could not concentrate and that resulted in fumbling with ingredients, melting Seamus's cauldron, the resulting explosion drenching him the boil-curing potion they had been brewing.

After being screamed at for being incompetent he made his way to The Hospital Wing, for what would turn out to be the first of many many trips, he hoped that Madam Pomfrey would have something for the burns.

Then came their first flying lesson, he had sat next to Hermione at breakfast who had been aggressively flipping through Quidditch Through The Ages. He was pretty sure that it would be of next to no help but one look at her mental hair, by now a clear sign that she was emotional, he shut up. Ron was quietly, for Ron at least, scoffing at her from the other side of the table. Neville didn't want her to feel bad, though he was relieved that someone was as nervous as he was. Even so, she had an excuse, even if she was completely terrible, she was muggleborn. He on the other hand should have been better prepared for this but his Gran had never let him have a broom. She had said that anyone as clumsy as he was with both feet on the ground would be a menace airborne and he had defeatedly walked away from the potential argument.

Breakfast over they walked onto the Quidditch pitch to meet Madam Hooch who had them line up in two rows facing each other, each student next to a school broom that had been laid out on the ground. This lesson was with the Slytherins, of course. Draco Malfoy had seemingly made it his personal mission to make Neville's life difficult and they had only been there a few days. Draco was at the top of a list of children his Gran wanted him to have nothing to do with, this was probably one of the only things that he had ever totally agreed with her on. Malfoy was the epitome of everything that was wrong with the old fashioned pureblood circles. He was loud, rude, cruel and a snob. Worse he was a coward, he revelled in throwing out his hateful comments but he didn't go anywhere without at least two of his little followers with him.

A few years ago he had gone to The Ministry with his Gran and they had bumped into Lucius Malfoy, Draco's Father, Neville had disliked him instantly and from the expression on his face when he saw Neville the feeling was mutual. Draco was well on his way to being a complete carbon copy of his father.

As soon as the lesson began he lost control of the broom, he had been so afraid of being the only one not to get the thing airborne he pushed off too early and ended up going much higher than he bargained for. When he was several feet higher than Madam Hooch's head he panicked and with the resulting lapse in concentration the broom fell out of the air and he plummeted to the ground, hard.

Madam Hooch rushed over, after she helped him off the ground he noticed the weird angle his wrist was sitting at and she insisted on escorting him to The Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey got up from behind her desk when the heavy doors were swung open;

"Good Afternoon Mr Longbottom we meet again"

He gave her a watery smile and sat onto the bed the nurse directed him to. After running a series of diagnostic spells over him Madam Pomfrey informed him he had a broken wrist. He sighed, he had only just got rid of the rash that remained after the potions accident. How could he have injured himself again?

Before he could continue to mentally berate himself the Hospital Wing doors swung open and from the unmistakable hair that appeared Hermione had come to see him. With some difficulty, that he stifled a laugh at, she hoisted herself up and perched on the end of his bed

"What did Madam Pomfrey say?"

"She's getting me a potion then I should be ok to go. Did...Did everyone laugh at me when I was gone?" Neville hated that he could feel his cheeks flush as he asked the question, he hated to be embarrassed and had already spent too much time feeling like the butt of the jokes since he came to Hogwarts.

Hermione smiled softly at him "No, everyone was distracted. Malfoy took your remberall and flew off daring Harry to give chase. Which he obviously did and then was spotted by Professor McGonagall through her office window, she came running down on to the pitch afterwards, it looked like she had steam coming out of her ears she was so mad"

"Wow, wouldn't like to be in his shoes...how did the rest of it go for you?"

"Same as before you left really, I kept saying 'up' but the broom would not 'up'. Never left the ground the whole lesson" Hermione said indignantly, eyes alive with frustration.

"You don't think...Never mind" her eyes fell to the floor, her hair falling forward almost totally obscuring her face. He was getting used to her mannerisms, she always hid when she was really worried about something.

"I don't think what?" He probed gently

"Well...Malfoy...and some of the other Slytherins..."

"You don't want to go listening to them"

She lifted her head ever so slightly and he could see that the corners of her mouth had twinged "no...I know...but well... they've said a few things about being muggleborn and I wanted to be able to fly so badly because I didn't want them to know I couldn't do something. It would feel like I had proved them right, but… but I'm just so scared of it. I don't like heights at all and this one time I went skiing with my parents and there was this huge lift and I…"

Sensing that she was about to spiral and completely unravel he cut her off "Hermione it's just flying a broom, it's not the end of the world"

"Really?"

"Really"

"So remedial flying lessons it is then" she sighed

"Yeah I guess so, there should be a few less people in that class and we only have to know the basics and then we don't have to do it anymore" Neville tried to reassure her, he felt silly given he had exactly the same fears, although when she started to look relieved it made him feel better.

"I suppose you're right, as you're not going to be in here much longer do you want to come to the library with me? Was going to head there to start on my Potions homework"

"So you can help me you mean?" He didn't intend for his words to come out as harsh as they had, however, on his second visit to the Hospital Wing in a week he didn't want to be reminded of Potions at all, homework or not.

"No I'm going to work on it, if you want to be there reading the same books, quietly discussing the topic, that's up to you" she smiled brightly at him and he felt his prickly attitude fade.

"Also I wouldn't mind a bit of help on the Herbology Devil's Snare assignment, I'm mislabelling something on my diagram and its throwing everything off"

Neville beamed at her, maybe it hadn't such a bad start after all.

He could see Ron was unhappy from the back of his head, it didn't take a great deal to read Ron. He was given to large displays of emotion, quick to anger, especially if he was being kept from his food for any period of time.

Neville was in a cluster of Gryffindor boys leaving their second charms class of the term and Ron was on a tear about Hermione. She had embarrassed him in class when she had corrected him on his spell pronunciation and his attempt at turning the humiliation on her by asking her to 'prove it' had failed when her levitated feather made its way higher and higher eventually settling on one of the rafters, Professor Flitwick had all but fallen off his book pile in delight.

"Did you hear her?…it's leviosa not leviosar" Ron mimicked her voice unflatteringly, Harry and Dean made some noises of assent. He could see where Ron was coming from, Hermione's manner was stand offish at times and it alienated her from a lot of people. He didn't think she did it intentionally and she wasn't like that around him, not really, with others she seemed to struggle to express herself.

Ron continued "I mean it's no wonder why she hasn't got any friends" Neville thought that was a bit strong, he was willing himself to say something in her defense but before he could articulate anything he was knocked off balance by Hermione herself pushing past them all, for a girl that looked as fragile as she did she could be incredibly strong at times. He called after her but she didn't turn around. Her shoulders were slumped and he could see her drag the body of her bag around her front and clutch it to her chest like a shield.

"Did you have to?" He asked still watching Hermione disappear from view

"What? She should hear it, she's insufferable"

"She's actually… she's actually really nice" the boys all stopped and turned to look at him, he wasn't made for standing up to people but Hermione had been nice to him, helping him look for his toad, visiting him in The Hospital Wing "She can come off a bit cold" Ron snorted "But she's not just in a new school she's in a whole new world so… so cut her some slack...please"

Harry appeared slightly abashed and even Ron looked vaguely thoughtful. Neville nodded awkwardly at the boys and went off in the direction that Hermione had marched in would probably find her in the library. He hoped things would start to get easier for her, for both of them.