A/N Hello! As penance for my ridiculous workload keeping me from writing, have a double update! Merry Christmas!

Neville, 8

"Honestly, Algie, Frank would be ashamed. We're going to have to face facts. Neville is a squib. He has to be to not have shown any magical ability at this point."

Young Neville Longbottom knew his grandmother thought this of him but at eight years old hearing it confirmed for the first time hurt. He slunk into the garden; plants being the only thing he knew that weren't disappointed in him. They didn't judge. Even his dad's old cat, the only memento he had of him, always fixed him a steely glare of disdain.

As an eight-year-old having grown up constantly in the shadow of two incredibly brave parents who had suffered a fate worse than death fighting for what was right, poor Neville always felt unwanted, not good enough. The one thing he wanted more than anything else was to see her look at him and say those four words: "I'm proud of you." His lack of magic wasn't for lack of trying, though. In fact, the person most disappointed at his apparent Squib tendency was Neville himself.

Yet he did have an affinity with magical plants. Augusta had no idea how often her grandson would sneak into her greenhouses; she believed it was her 'expert attention' that gleaned such great results from them. On this particular afternoon, Neville busied himself with the flutterby bushes.

Great-Uncle Algie had arrived at exactly half past three with his wife, Enid. He was the one member of the family that hadn't signed the boy off as a lost cause and honestly Neville wasn't sure if that was better or worse than his grandmother's reaction. Algie seemed to take it as his job to force Neville into displaying some magical ability and in all honestly Neville had been a little afraid of him ever since he was nearly drowned off Blackpool Pier.

The first words Algie had said to Mrs Longbottom that day had been enough to encourage the boy into hiding in the greenhouse for two hours.

"Augusta," he had greeted her. "Where is that wayward grandson of yours then, eh? I think I know how to coax that magic out of him."

His two hours were up, however, when Gran called him to dinner. He had two choices: go out and face Algie or stay put, be discovered within ten minutes and have to face her wrath as well as the great-uncle.

He may have been next to useless but he was no idiot. Facing Algie was the only plausible option. Neville slunk tentatively from the spider's breeding ground and arrived in the house covered in webs and dirt.

"Neville!" his grandmother admonished shrilly. "I don't know what he does to get in this state, Enid. Frank was never like this," she added as she attempted to dust him down.

Grinning like the Chesire Cat, Algie approached the boy and ruffled his hair. "How ya doing there, my boy?" he asked heartily.

Neville flinched and gratefully took the opportunity to help Great Aunt Enid carry the plates in. However, on his way out of the kitchen his arm brushed against an object on the counter, causing it to splatter all over the floor. This, of course, would have to be the dessert (prompting another "Oh, Neville!" from his grandmother).

Thankfully, the rest of the main course passed without incident. Neville was starting to believe that perhaps he was safe this time around when Enid banished them all from her kitchen as she whipped up something new for dessert, at which point Augusta began to protest that they couldn't possibly wait a few hours to finish their tea and Enid shot her down, as happened frequently in the kitchen jurisdiction. Neville could have happily listened to the two women's argument but this was the time that Algie deemed to take him aside.

"Neville, my boy," he grinned, and that was how the horror of the afternoon truly began.

Firstly, Algie, after relocating to the first-floor sitting room, regaled the boy with tales of his youth at Hogwarts; torture for it seemed Neville would never have such an immensely exciting youth. Then, and Neville wasn't sure which was worse, he began to ask the eight-year-old about his week which, honestly hadn't been as exhilarating as Algie seemed to imply it should have been.

Clearly, however, all this chatter was just a ruse to put Neville off his guard.

"It's getting stuffy in here," said Algie as he went to throw the windows wide open. Looking out, he seemed to see something and began to chuckle. "I say, my boy, come and look at this!" he exclaimed.

So Neville did and in the next second found himself upside down outside the window, suspended by his ankles. It seemed quite a long way down.

"Uncle Algie!" he screamed in fear.

"Come on, Neville, son, back inside with you," Algie smirked.

"I can't. I can't. I can't."

It's quite interesting what you notice about your back garden when hung upside down from the first floor. For example, the paving stones were uneven and thus had sharp corners sticking up. The rose bushes really weren't that far from the house. Augusta's patio furniture seemed black, not navy blue, from directly above it.

Neville writhed and shrieked but his cries had no effect on Algie who continued to goad him into using magic. Suddenly, Neville found himself swinging wildly like a pendulum. His Great-Uncle had let go of one of his legs and was leaning casually on the window sill.

"Please, Uncle Algie! Help! Help!" Neville sobbed.

Luckily, Neville's reprieve came in the form of Enid. She called up the stairs at her husband.

"Algernon, your dessert is ready. Come down here and leave the boy alone."

So Algie vacated his spot by the window and descended the stairs, quite unaware of what he had forgotten until his feet hit the bottom step.

"Where's my grandson got to?" Augusta called as a screaming blur came flying from above the window to hit the ground with an audible crack.

As the ground came hurtling up towards him, Neville cried out. If there was ever a time for his magic to present itself, it was now. That was all Neville could ever remember thinking in that moment. Well, that and 'AAAAAAAARGH'. But then, as the ground came up towards him, he felt himself slowing to the point that he felt like he was drifting in the ocean and the world around him gained a dreamlike quality.

Then he hit the ground. Only it wasn't hard and painful. The solid patio felt like the springs of a mattress as it launched him back into the air. Some seven bounces later, he landed in a heap on a tiny crest above a stream, before rolling half-heartedly down it.

Augusta came rushing up. "Neville!" she screamed. "Neville!"

As soon as she found him, she pulled him upright and began to dust him down.

"Are you alright?" she demanded. "No injuries?"

Seeing that her grandson was unharmed she let out an unbecoming shriek of realisation as Algie and Enid caught up. "Neville! You have magic!"

"Eh, good on you, lad," Algie grinned. "I told you I had a plan."

However, this may have been the wrong thing to say since Augusta rounded on him as the shock wore off.

"You could have killed him, Algernon!" she yelled. Pulling a terrified face, Algie began to hobble back towards the house. "You'd better run! Wait until I get my hands on you!" she cried, giving chase.

Neville was left alone, battered but unshakeable in his triumph. He would go to Hogwarts. He wasn't a disappointment. He, Neville Longbottom, was a wizard.


It didn't even matter that the throngs of people kept knocking him over. Neville clutched Uncle Algie's robes for dear life. Today he was getting his reward. Uncle Algie was going to buy him a pet that he could take to Hogwarts! The whole thing still felt like a dream.

"Here we are, my boy," Algie's booming voice finally announced. "Magical Menagerie."

Neville's little heart sank. Clearly he wasn't getting an owl or they would be at Eeylops.

His Great-Uncle seemed to read his mind. "Now I know you wanted an owl," he said. "But they're a lot of work. You want a pet that's nice and easy to look after. Besides, you can't keep an owl in your dormitory with you, now can you?"

Maybe not. Neville nodded to himself, slowly becoming content with the idea of a cat or a rat. His mother had had a rat.

However, when Algie reappeared, ten minutes after he had harangued the salesperson into allowing him to barter in the back room, he held a small green thing between his hands. It blinked awkwardly: a toad.

"Here you go, Neville, my boy," Algie grinned toothily. "I had a toad when I went to Hogwarts. My best friend, Cecil was."

Despite himself, Neville looked into the little creature's eyes. All thought of the embarrassing stigma attached to toads disappeared as he immediately loved the tiny thing. Algie was right; an owl wouldn't do. This toad was so very Neville. He reached out and slowly took it from his uncle, in rapture. It yawned.

"What'cha going to call him, kid?" his uncle asked.

Neville thought for a moment. "Trevor," he replied.

A/N Up next: Dean finds out he's a wizard and confides in friends old and new.