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Chapter 7- Progress
That night, McGonagall rapped on Neville's door at eight o'clock.
He opened the door prepared and dressed in his cloak, excited to try warding the teaspoon again. He had read over her notes for an hour, gone on a walk, and then read through them again and actually understood them- but he felt like the information was already slipping slowly out of his head, piece by piece. Blasted memory.
He was greeted by the sight of her standing there with furrowed brow, and she swept into the room even more briskly than usual.
"I haven't been thinking straight what with all the war preparations and… our losses," she admitted as she sat down on a chair near his bed. "The plan I told you yesterday won't work."
Neville shut the door and cast Muffliato just in case, then walked over and sat on the bed. "What do you mean it won't work? Dumbledore left me this job, he knew that I could handle it, and I thought yesterday that you believed in me too, finally…"
McGonagall took in his pained expression and wringing hands, feeling inexplicably guilt-ridden though she had only treated him as she had every other student throughout the years.
"Mr. Longbottom, I meant we had to revise our strategy, not decide to throw it out the window. We have reason to believe that Death Eaters will be running the school next year."
At Neville's stunned silence, McGonagall continued.
"There is a chance these Death Eaters will be Legilimens. And no matter how small the chance-"
"If there's a possibility of their reading my mind, no plan will be safe," said Neville, eyes widening with fear. "McGonagall, what do we do? Are you going to Obliviate all my memories of our meetings and give someone else the job?"
"Longbottom, do calm down," McGonagall snapped. "We are not doing anything even near so drastic; you'll be having lessons in how to defend your mind from a man who has honed the skill over many years of intense practice." Neville thought this sounded suspicious; bringing someone in to school to tutor him privately was too conspicuous, and he could think of no one in the school who might be skilled enough except…
"Snape," he whispered, horrified.
"That's Professor Snape," said McGonagall chidingly. "And you would do well not to disrespect him in your lessons, as I hear he is rather harsh. I would teach you myself, but my days are growing evermore busy so I can now only meet with you two nights a week, which we will devote to your warding skills and, eventually, mimicking Dumbledore."
Neville's breath hitched at the mention of the wizard's name, and he noticed that McGonagall had unusually dark and deep bags under her eyes. No matter how much he had looked up to the man and enjoyed spending time with him, his Professor had been through infinitely more with him and also been burdened with the daunting task of helping reorganize the Order after his death.
"Two other nights will be spent practicing dueling with Flitwick, and one night you will have for yourself. Although Professor Flitwick is obviously trustworthy and an excellent person overall, we have already agreed we are telling no one else of your task so I simply asked him to train you as a favor, since you're helping Sprout so much and asked me for help preparing for the war in return. Snape does not know any details either, other than you have some sensitive information we don't want Obliviated from your mind- though there's no getting around his probable discovery of the truth during your lessons, so I allow you to tell him whenever you want. I can give you the confirmed schedule tomorrow, but can already tell you that you'll have Saturdays as your nights off- meaning tomorrow. Now let's see how much progress you've made on your warding."
McGonagall observed him as he scrunched up his face in concentration as he had the last time, upset that she couldn't monitor his progress in this type of magic in any other way than to test the effects. It was a mental kind of magic, meaning it was the hardest to teach to others as well as to attempt since there were no visible mistakes to pick up on.
"I'm done," he said finally, face relaxing a bit.
She reached out to take the spoon, not expecting much of anything to happen, and as she touched the handle, nothing did. She realized now, however, that last time she had not checked the entire object for warding, only the handle, and proceeded to prod different parts of the spoon with her fingertip. She picked up on nothing until she reached the bowl of the spoon, where Longbottom had been holding, and suddenly found herself hitting the door of the Hospital Wing with a thud and felt nothing more.