House: Ravenclaw
Position: Transfiguration
Category: Standard
Prompt: [Profession] Professor
Word Count: 1874
A/N: AU. An accurate map of Hogwarts grounds are hard to come by. Making an executive call on placement of greenhouses based on what I know about plants and sunlight that may not be exactly canon.
This may also be in conflict with the new timeline a bit since The Cursed Child, but I see Neville as starting his apprenticeship soon after the end of our original story. HP Wiki indicates that Neville may have given Auror a try as a profession, but was only at the MoM briefly. He turns up in the 21st Century as the professor of Herbology at Hogwarts. I imagine that he co-taught with Pomona for quite a while, and I am going to imagine him that way here.
Wallflower
Minerva shivered and wrapped her robes more tightly about her as she moved briskly across the Middle Courtyard. The sun beyond shone burnished gold, and the sky was a kaleidoscope of reds and purples, oranges and blues. The colors of warmth and summer; but the bite of winter was already in the air, even this early in the season, and Minerva knew all too well how quickly that cold would settle into her bones.
All the more reason to visit the Greenhouses.
She stepped her way deftly across a few sodden patches of grass, following the slate walkway that led out towards the southern edge of the compound. As she neared Greenhouse Two, she scooped up a familiar old friend and proceeded inside to check up on her newest charge.
"Professor," she called out in a bright, upbeat tone. The affectation was purposeful. She had already heard about the day's events and didn't want the boy to feel as if he would now also have to face her wrath or disappointment. Exaggerated, for a surety, but sometimes, one must.
"Ah, there you are," she said, coming around a corner of a long trestle table full of bushy Fanged Geranium. She brushed the glossy green leaves aside as she approached his overly small work station. "Professor Longbottom. I am glad to find you here."
"Profes— ah, no. Sorry, ma'am. Headmast— Merlin's beard," he stammered.
"It's all right, Longbottom. Take a breath. Minerva will do just fine."
He stared at her with that worried look he had. "I'm not sure I can manage that just yet, Professor."
"It's been a long first day, Neville," she chided, softly. "Why don't you tell me about it." She plopped Trevor down on the desk just as a House Elf appeared with the requested tea and biscuits.
His shoulder slumped. "You know then?"
Minerva finished fixing her tea and was considering a rather rich looking Battenburg. "There are few things I do not know," she replied. "I am Headmistress, after all."
"Then I'm sacked," he sighed, his face now competing with his shoulders, so pronounced was his frown.
"Good grief, no!" She looked up at him, sharply. "Sit down, already." She pointed at the empty chair across from her and he sat. "Neville. Have you any idea how many professors have come through this institution? Do you?"
He shook his head, silently, a mouthful of Chelsea Bun already within.
"Neither do I," she smiled, mischievously. "But I can guarantee you, they all had a first day, and they all wished it had gone differently." She sipped her tea and settled back into her seat. The warm, moist air of the high humidity in Greenhouse Two was slowly easing the pressure in her knees. "All of them." She smirked. "Well, probably not Snape," she jested, coaxing the least little bit of smile from him.
"Yes, well, I'm certain none of them ever passed out in front of a classroom full of students," he moaned, his frown returning.
"Oh, no," she agreed, too readily. "That must certainly be unique. I mean, of a certainty, with all the hundreds of years Hogwarts has been here, and the thousands of professors prior to you, and the tens of thousands of students…" She let the thought sink in.
His eyes widened with hope. "Oh," he said, softly.
"There is nothing new under the sun, Neville," she replied with what she hoped sounded like reassurance. She leaned across the divide and patted his knee. "Even I had a bad first day. Far worse than yours."
His eyebrows crawled up his forehead. "Really?"
Minerva started to laugh. "Oh! It was the absolute worst!" She watched closely as the young man's shoulders seemed to unwind, if only a bit. He reached forward with a bit more calm and poured himself another cup of tea.
"I had only just left Hogwarts myself a year or two before," she prattled on. "Well, come to think of it, maybe it was three…"
"Professor!"
"Minerva," she insisted, gently. He'd had to get around to it sooner or later. Might as well be now.
Nevile scrunched up his face as if he smelled something bad. "Okay. Alright, fine. Minerva." He looked shocked that he didn't immediately burst into flame. "Please go on. Minerva."
"Yes, well, however long it was, it wasn't long enough for me. My first day, I had to walk into a classroom and teach students who had been at Hogwarts while I was there as a student myself. It was most vexing."
She hid how she really felt behind a judiciously applied piece of china and a swig of overly steeped Irish Breakfast. Vexing is not the half of it. I spent the whole year vomiting up my lunch prior to that Advanced Transfiguration class.
"I passed out in front of a whole classful of Second Years, Minerva," Neville persisted. "It was far more than vexing. I don't know how I am going to face them again."
"You will do as I did," she answered. "You will do as every Hogwarts professor has ever done in the face of a challenge. You will show up and you will teach. It is really quite simple."
"But—"
"No 'buts', Professor. We expect the very best from you because we've already seen what you are made of." She patted his knee again, and winked at him, a smile on her face. She sat back only long enough to place her cup out of the way before she rose.
"I'm sure things will get better from here on in," she twittered as she patted Trevor on the head and turned about to leave. "You'll see." She made her way briskly back to the confines of the castle wherein she retreated to her office and lit a fire.
She poured herself a Firewhiskey and took up her post at the window behind her desk where she liked to take in the sunset over the Quidditch pitch.
"So, how did it go?
"He'll be fine. Just first day nerves."
"Didn't he faint while handling Mandrake during his Second Year here, also?"
"And if he did, Albus? What has that to do with anything?"
"Well, it only seems as if he is, perhaps, lacking a bit of fortitude."
"Fortitude?" She whipped around to look at Dumbledore's portrait. Her eyes flashed with anger, and sadness. "No, Albus. You weren't there. You don't know him as I do. What kind of fortitude he has. He is the strongest among us. Of that I have little doubt."
She turned back to the window, her outburst done. They stood in silence as the sun made its final offerings to the sky, and the grounds dipped into darkness.
"Do you feel better?" Albus asked.
"Should I?"
"I think you feel more assured of your choices once you've had to defend them." Her head swiveled around and she looked at him, astonished. "Did you think I stopped mentoring you because I died?"
She could not help but notice that damnable twinkle in his eyes as they peered out over his half-moon spectacles.
"I suppose it never occurred to me that mentorship was what was happening."
He laughed. "Oh, Minerva. My tender heart. You take it too personally."
"Well, how should I take it," she flashed again, grabbing the back of her leather chair, and wrenching it back so she could take a seat.
"As your friend, who also sees the great potential you have and wants to nurture it." he removed his glasses and leaned forward as much as his portrait allowed. "But firstly, as your friend." He sat back. "A friend, mind you, who was quite the salvation to you on your first day on the job."
Minerva flopped back in her seat. "Oh, Albus. I try so hard to forget."
"You should have shared it with our young Longbottom. I am certain he would've felt a good deal better."
"And he would never have respected me again."
"Tosh, Minerva," Albus chided. "That's not the case and you know it. If anything, you would have brought him great solace to know that even the best of us struggle."
"It's not the same," she dug in.
"Isn't it?" He pushed back. There was only one reason to keep Albus Dumbledore in her office when he was this annoying. Well, two if I count that he did specifically request it.
"Are you insinuating that I might still be a little sensitive about it?"
He shrugged, but his face said it all.
Minerva pushed back from her desk. "I do think I've had just about enough of your mentoring for one evening, Albus."
She took several big strides and bounded out the door thinking only of escape to her rooms, but not before she heard Albus call after her.
"Don't forget to tell him about how I had to throw you in the lake! Still one of my proudest mome—"
Minerva bypassed the activity in the Great Hall. Dinner would sit too heavy on her already sour stomach to do her any good. She was halfway back to her personal quarters when she saw a light coming from the far side of the yard.
Greenhouse Two. She stopped in her tracks, her thoughts swirling. If it is for the greater good, perhaps… She braced herself, and headed out.
Albus is fundamentally wrong. It isn't the same at all! Neville got worked up and fainted. A completely normal reaction if one is overworked or anxious; certainly Neville was both. She picked up her pace in the face of the chill wind. No! I Transfigured and got stuck in my Animagus form. I was the Transfiguration Professor for Merlin's sake!
She arrived outside of Greenhouse Two breathless and flushed. Had she been speaking aloud? She couldn't be sure. Her palms and back were sweaty; her brow furrowed with tension. Calmly, now Minerva. No need to rile the boy anymore than he is already. She exhaled forcefully, dried her hands on her robes, and grabbed the door handle.
She was making her way down the long corridor of newly sprouted Devil's Snare when she was caught up short by the low murmur of conversation. She stopped and listened.
"Right, then, Trevor. If this one goes to Petunia, then I'll have to give this slightly larger one to Barry. It'll work out fine since he's already showing an aptitude and I think Petunia will respond better to the smaller-sized Moly. What do you think?" There was a detectable pause in the conversation wherein the toad didn't respond in any way that Minerva could detect. "Yes, I agree. Good."
The scratching and mumbling continued as Neville cataloged his plant inventory and prepared them for his next class. He moved back and forth with purpose, his voice sounding steady, decisive, while Trevor croaked intermittently in rhythm, if not response. Minerva had to smile; Neville was everything she had just claimed him to be in her encounter with Albus.
In the end, she crept back out the way she came and left him to his preparations. There would be time in the future for sharing. She knew this now, for certain. But now, for tonight, she could sleep easy. She had done enough.