To Mr. Neville A. Longbottom:

Thank you for your submission to the Spring hiring pool at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the position of Junior Auror. The hiring committee has reviewed your application and credentials and has returned a decision.

Unfortunately, while your average examination score is well above average, the importance of a strong understanding and application of Transfiguration is inescapable in the Auror office. Our records indicate that N.E.W.T. requirements have been waived for your application, which suggests a lack of background in the subject that may have contributed to your examination results.

However, the committee feels it is a shame to reject your otherwise strong application outright, and so the decision has been made to extend you the option of sitting the Concealment and Disguise seminar once more, to improve upon your previous score. Once your score has been improved, you are invited to submit another application to the next applicable hiring pool.

Please feel free to send an owl to your liaison, Mr. Lysander Quartz, if you have any questions or wish to enroll in the Concealment and Disguise seminar beginning on the Fourth of June.

Best Wishes,

Edmund S. Skyhawk III

Department of Personnel

Ministry of Magic

Dear Neville,

I hope this letter finds you well. I know it must be a bit of a shock to suddenly hear from me out of nowhere, but an interesting opportunity prompts me to write before I let it be known to the general public.

As you know, I'm getting on in years, and I've decided that the time is right for me to retire from my post. This, of course, leaves an opening in the faculty and, as the best Herbology student I've taught in the last decade, I would like nothing more than to see you take my place at Hogwarts.

I can't imagine you've been doing nothing since you left school, and it's entirely possible you've begun another career in the intervening years. However, if this opportunity interests you, please let me know, and I will put your name forward to Professor McGonagall (she is Headmistress now) as my nominee for the post. I am sure she would be thrilled to have you back at Hogwarts, and I know you would be a brilliant teacher.

I would of course take you as an assistant professor for a year first, so you could learn to get on with the students and such, and we could begin the transition as early as August this year.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely yours,

Pomona Sprout

Neville looked between the two letters on the table, not exactly sure what emotion was currently causing the constricting feeling in his chest. There was such a storm within him that he couldn't easily pick them apart, everything curling sickeningly in his stomach until he thought he would be ill.

Unfortunately, while your average examination score is well above average...

I know you would be a brilliant teacher...

His tea had grown cold on the table. Rain pattered on the glass of the kitchen window in an endless staccato. Unutterable defeat at the first letter battled with intrigue and hesitant elation at the second.

The two sheets of parchment could not be more dissimilar: the one from the Ministry had sharp creases and crisp, no-nonsense square corners, the dark blue ink at stark contrast with the creaminess of the parchment, the wax seal perfectly centered; Professor Sprout's had obviously been torn from a larger roll, the edges fuzzed and uneven, and the wax looked to have traces of soil stuck in, likely entirely unintentionally.

Unfortunately...

Brilliant...

Neville had no idea what he should be feeling. His thoughts felt like oil and water and skipped from one letter to the other without any sort of confluence between the two, and his head was beginning to hurt.

He blinked, got up from the table, and had pulled on his cloak and was striding to the Apparition point at the bottom of the lane before he realized what he was doing.

His father looked at him with mild interest as he pulled a chair up between their beds. Neville had hung his cloak from the back of it and it dripped slightly on the white tile floor.

He didn't bother drawing the curtains around the beds. The ward was mostly empty, the patients he had grown up knowing either having passed on or recovered enough to be transferred home or to other wards. At the moment, it was only him, his parents, and one other patient asleep in his bed, breathing deeply. The Healer attending the ward was, for the moment, escorting Gilderoy Lockhart to an arts and crafts hour elsewhere. The lights in the room were off and the grey early spring sky filtered the sun into a steely, cold illumination through the window at the end of the ward.

He cupped his chin in his hands, elbows propped on his knees, at a loss for what to say. His parents were watching him with glassy eyes, and the little part of him that always wanted to weep when he sat here twisted inside him like a tiny knife.

"I... didn't do it," he said finally. "I didn't make it. Wasn't good enough. I'm... I'm sorry, Mum. Dad. I'm sorry." The back of his throat burned, and he swallowed with determination. Even when he was small, he hadn't cried in front of his parents. He took a shaky breath and drew the letters from his pocket where he'd hurriedly stuffed them in his rush to leave the house. "After all that work I put into Antidotes. I thought that class was going to keep me back, not..." He shook his head and swallowed again. "I can do it again," he told them. "I can try again and maybe this time... but then there's this." He smoothed Professor Sprout's letter over his knee, the dark green ink a little smeared from some of the rain that had got on it.

"I told you about Herbology. Remember?" His mother nodded eagerly, her eyes lighting up for a moment, but Neville knew it wasn't an act of comprehension so much as a response to his tone of voice. "It was the only thing I was really good at on my own. And I know it's not like being an Auror, like you, but... it's something I know I can do. Something I was proud of, before the war changed everyone, before... everything.

"I don't know what to do," he said quietly, looking from one to the other. "I don't know what you'd want me to do. And I don't know what Luna would want me to do. That's — Luna's my girlfriend," he explained, a bit bashfully, his gaze dropping to his hands as he said it. "I think you'd like her. She's very kind, and clever, and gentle. She's in Australia right now, half a world away, and... god, I wish I could talk to her about this." He stopped talking for a while then, studying the scars on his knuckles absently as his mind churned. He glanced up to see that his father was toying with a button on his robes, his mother looking more through him than at him. "What kind of son did you want, back when you could actually want anything?" he asked in a quiet voice, mostly to himself. He looked between the two letters again, and then helplessly back up at his parents. His mother offered a tiny smile and reached out to pat his knee. Neville's breath caught and he stood abruptly, walking over to the window to look out at the colorless sky.

"You're barking up the wrong tree if you want conversation," a voice said from behind him. Neville closed his eyes in slight irritation before turning to see the other occupant of the room standing from his bed, arching his back as he stretched, his hospital robes worn and threadbare. "That lot don't talk."

"I know," Neville said shortly. "They're my parents."

"Oh, that's too bad," the man said, not sounding as though he meant it. He sauntered over to Neville. "And you are?"

Neville sighed inwardly. "I don't believe we've met," he said, turning politely and offering his hand to the man he'd introduced himself to dozens of times over. "I'm Neville Longbottom."

"I'm Ricky McCarron," the other man said, taking Neville's hand and shaking it heartily. "Good to meet you."

Neville carefully noted the man's name today as he retrieved his hand. "Good to meet you as well. I'm sorry, Mr. McCarron, but I was —"

"You were trying to get approval from your parents for the choice you don't know how to make," McCarron said solemnly, bringing Neville up short. He blinked, and McCarron apparently took that as agreement. "I eavesdrop," he said in a stage whisper. "It's dreadfully boring here, yeah? Any road, they're not going to be of much help. Doubt they know a word of what you're saying."

The tiny knife twisted within him again. "I know that," he said quietly, not looking at the other man.

"So why bother?" McCarron looked completely unconcerned at the level of discomfort his words were spurring Neville to.

Neville shrugged helplessly. "I... I'd like to think they're somewhere in there." He swallowed again, looking back at his father, who was watching the two of them talk with air of someone watching the countryside go by on a train. "And that there's someone in there that can be... proud of me." He suddenly felt ridiculous for trying to defend his actions to McCarron, or Stevens, or Jackson, or whoever the man had decided he was on any given day.

"You're just like every other young man who doesn't want to let his parents down. You want reassurance." McCarron said with a shrewd air. He leaned forward, and in that same stage whisper of earlier, "You're not going to get it. You're never going to get it, not from them." He straightened and studied his fingernails for a moment before continuing, "You've got to do what makes you proud of yourself. You're all you've got." He jerked his head in a gesture at his mother and father. "They can't be proud, but they would, if they could. You're their son. They'd be proud no matter what you did. That's not why you're here."

Neville licked his lips. "They were Aurors," he said uselessly. "And I wanted to be one, too. Spent three years trying to be one. For them. And I still can, maybe. Except..."

"Why are you telling me this?" McCarron asked with a disaffected air. "I couldn't care less. Well, I could, but then I'd be no better off than them." He gestured carelessly in his mother and father's direction. His expression then abruptly changed to one of immeasurable intensity. "Don't devote your life's work to anyone but you, Neville. You can't let them down, not anymore. You can only let yourself down. So consider carefully. Are you letting yourself down?" He spun in a sudden about-face and strode smoothly across the room back to his bed, where he laid down and pulled the covers over himself without another word.

Neville stared for a moment. This was an ordinary encounter with the man, as things went, but he'd never before felt so out of sorts at the end of one. He lowered himself back into the chair between his parents' beds, and reached out and took both of their hands.

"What should I do?" he asked in a near whisper. "Mum, Dad, what should I do?"

He still hadn't lit upon anything even approaching a solution when he wordlessly slipped into the booth across from Ron and Harry that evening, reaching out to serve himself from the pitcher of beer already on the table. He'd considered not coming at all, but there was only so much pacing he could do before the sight of the walls of his house started to sicken him. He stared at the bubbles in the beer rising to the top in his glass, still determinedly saying nothing.

Harry and Ron glanced at each other. "Rough day, then?" Ron ventured. Neville nodded.

"Want to talk about it?" Harry asked. Neville hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk, but...

He was saved by the waitress bringing a plate of chips and setting it in the middle of the table.

"More beer?" she asked.

"Yes, please," Harry said, "Another pitcher." She nodded as she turned to leave.

"Actually, can I get a whiskey, please?" Neville asked before she'd taken two steps. She turned back around and cocked her head at him.

"What kind?" She looked at him expectantly.

"Er, Emberglen, if you've got it. Neat. Water on the side." From the corner of his eye, he saw Ron and Harry's completely nonplussed expressions, and he drew in a deep breath. "I visited my parents today," he said finally, not meeting their eyes. It wasn't a lie.

Ron mouthed, "Ah," and buried his face in his glass. Harry unnecessarily straightened his glasses and reached for a chip, clearing his throat. Neville immediately felt terrible for the minor subterfuge. His parents weren't an excuse to fling about whenever he didn't feel like talking out his problems. It had been a cowardly evasion, and now one he was stuck with.

"How's the shop?" he asked in a falsely bright voice. Ron started slightly.

"Good, it's good. Getting ready for the Easter hols coming up, we always sell loads of Skiving Snackboxes once the fifth years get their O.W.L. schedules." He looked sidelong at Neville. "We could still use a hand going through the mail orders, you know."

"You always seem to be able to slip that into casual conversation," Neville said with mock wonder as the waitress placed his glass of whiskey at his elbow. Ron grinned sheepishly.

"Just saying, if you ever get bored pining for your girlfriend. When's she coming back, by the way?"

Neville sighed, swirling the amber liquid in its glass. "No idea. She said something vague before she left about being back in time for the wedding, but it sounds like it's slow going doing... whatever it is she's doing down there." He took a sip and let the liquor lie on his tongue for a moment before swallowing.

At the word "wedding," both Ron and Harry had grimaced. "What is it about weddings that makes lovely girls suddenly go starkers?" Harry asked vehemently.

"I don't know, but if I hear the word boutonniere one more time I think I'm going to hex someone, and it will probably be my mother," Ron replied.

Neville tuned them out as they began grousing about the various aspects of wedding planning they were being subjected to, turning his thoughts inward. He was sure he wouldn't be missed. He stared into his whiskey glass as he let his mind wander over the thoughts that had only recently begun to settle into a predictable pattern.

"Harry," he said suddenly, not particularly caring that he was interrupting a passionate diatribe against string quartets, "What made you decide you wanted to be an Auror?"

Harry's mouth snapped shut and his eyes unfocused for a moment as he thought. "I dunno," he said after a brief pause. "I just... never really wanted to do anything else, I suppose. I don't think it was ever a conscious decision." He took a gulp of his beer.

"All right, then," Neville pressed, "Why are you still an Auror? Why should I want to be an Auror?"

Harry looked baffled. "Because," he said slowly. "There are some twisted fucks out there, and someone has to find them and make them stop. And if it's not going to be me, who else would I trust to go out and do it?" He pushed his glasses up with one finger. "As for why you should want to be one... well, that's personal. But I'd trust you to go out and do it, if I wasn't." He shrugged.

That wasn't particularly helpful. It occurred to Neville that Harry probably did not spend a great deal of time soul-searching, and confirmed his previous reflection that Harry did not tend to think through why he did anything. "Ron. Why'd you decide to go to the shop instead?"

Ron grinned. "Because Harry's got it all covered already." He clapped his friend on the shoulder, then the grin slowly fell from his face. "Seriously, though. I think I had enough of the fighting. I'm not that keen on signing up for more, yeah? I thought I was. Thought I'd..." He cleared his throat loudly. "Thought I'd do it for Fred." He rubbed his nose and looked to the side for a moment, then brought his gaze back to Neville. "But it was during combat training, I think, when I just went, 'I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing this.' I've had enough of that for a lifetime."

"What's this about, Neville?" Harry asked suspiciously.

Neville gave a small shrug. "I've got a decision to make," he said simply. "And I've got no idea how to make it, and no one can really help me."

"Did you get the offer?" Harry pressed. Neville took a long sip of his whiskey, buying time.

"I got an offer," he responded, somewhat evasively. "And like I said, I don't know what I'm going to do about it." He drew a finger through some condensation on the table top.

Harry and Ron shared a look. "Is... there anything we can do to help you suss it out?" Ron asked.

Neville shrugged. "Like Harry said. It's personal." He savored the last sip of his whiskey. "I never really saw myself as an Auror. Not until people started telling me I should be one. Three years, people have been telling me I'd make an Auror. Three years, I've been..." he twisted his lips in thought, searching for the right words. "I've been enjoying the thought that I might be something more than I always thought I was." He shook his head. "I'm trying to decide if that's enough."

His words seemed to have silenced his friends. They looked at him in puzzlement, and he found himself wishing for Luna to say something insightful that would simultaneously make him laugh and make everything fall into place.

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Harry said finally. "You've always been more than you think you are, so long as I've known you. No matter what you're doing."

"What he said," Ron interjected.

Neville raised an eyebrow. "And if I'm not an Auror? If, say, I'm apprenticing to a wandmaker or teaching Herbology or writing a tell-all memoir about being Harry Potter's roommate during his formative years?"

Harry's eyebrows shot straight up at the last, while Ron snickered into his glass. "I'd hate to sic a solicitor on you for libel," he said lightly after he took a long draft of his beer. "But god knows there's a market for it." He brightened. "Say, if you write it, there might actually be a grain of truth in there. I should hire you to write one."

Neville groaned. "Trust you to latch onto the least likely career in that lineup."

"It's Herbology, isn't it?" Ron asked in a tone of surprise, narrowing his eyes as he peered at Neville. "You've gotten an offer to teach Herbology at Hogwarts."

"No," Neville said. And then, in the interest of honesty, "Well... not yet. But I've reason to think that if I want it, it's mine."

Harry smacked his palm down on the table top. "That clinches it, then," he said dramatically. "Another fine Auror candidate lost to the siren melody of his true calling." He lifted his glass to Neville.

"Hold on, I didn't say I was going to do it," Neville protested. "I've spent three years training to be an Auror. I've got Carson practically engraving the name plate for my door on her Potioneer team. I've had a chance to see what I'm capable of, and it's far more than just a teaching post at Hogwarts." For lack of anything else to busy his hands and mouth, he grabbed his abandoned glass of beer and took a long gulp. "The old Neville, before the war - he'd have been a spectacular teacher. But now I..." He lapsed into silence and started wishing he hadn't spoken.

"You're still Neville, mate," Ron said after a brief silence. "The war changed you. It changed everyone. Doesn't mean you're done changing, and you have to be who you are now forever."

Neville furrowed his brow. "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

Harry twisted on the bench to face Ron. "Yeah, what do you mean by that, Ronald? I never realized how poetic you get with a few drinks in you."

Ron reddened slightly. "What I mean is — you don't have to let the war dictate who you are or what you want to do. That's what I thought, at first — I thought I'd seen too much to be anything other than someone who fights against that sort of stuff." He shrugged. "Thought I was a bit of a coward for considering backing out to go to the joke shop. Took me a while to realize that I could be someone who could just... let it be. Be at peace with everything that had happened."

"You saying I'm not at peace?" Harry asked in a slightly challenging tone.

"Peace is not a term that comes to mind when I think of you, no," Ron returned. "But we're not talking about you right now. We're talking about Neville."

"We can be done talking about me if we're going to take the piss out of Harry," Neville offered. Ron shook his head.

"I don't think I'm getting across what I'm trying to say." He took a swallow of beer. "Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't be an Auror, because obviously that's what you've been working towards. But I wish I'd had a professor half as wicked as you'd make."

That tweaked a half-smile from Neville's lips despite himself. "You think?"

"Are you kidding?" Harry asked. "'Now, class, these are called mandragora, or mandrakes.'" he said, in a decent approximation of Neville's accent. "'Their cry can paralyze or kill, and oh, by the by, I chucked some off a wall at Death Eaters a few years back.'"

"Not to mention you'd give the Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions teachers a run for their money," Ron added, stuffing a chip in his mouth. "Probably Transfiguration, as well."

"Maybe not Transfiguration," Neville said absently. He shook his head. "It's just hard to wrap my head around. I've been so focused for years, and this seems like an about-face. Back to the old Neville I used to be."

Ron shook his head. "Old Neville isn't old Neville at all. He's you, with a couple years and a couple scars and some frankly frightening training." He looked Neville in the eye. "Honestly, whether you're Auror Longbottom or Professor Longbottom, you're a pretty impressive figure."

Neville sat back against the back of the booth, staring into middle space. The tumult in his mind seemed to have quieted, and his gut was no longer twisting. He reached into his pocket and tossed a galleon on the table.

"I've got a lot to go think on," he said as he stood. "Thanks."

Ron and Harry both raised their glasses to him and he smiled, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and walked to the door.

Dear Pomona,

I can't say I ever thought I'd see anything like your letter, but it came at a very welcome time.

I'm flattered that you think I'd make a good teacher, especially since it's been a while since I've done anything with Herbology. After some consideration, I've decided I quite like the sound of Professor Longbottom. If you'd like to put my name forward, I'd be thrilled to accept.

Let me know how we proceed from here.

Best Regards,

Neville Longbottom