Neve awoke to the sight of her grandmother's frowning face, her hands tensely shaking her shoulders. When Augusta noticed her granddaughter's fluttering eyes, her frown dissipated, and a small, angled smile founds its way onto her thin lips.
Neve was too discombobulated to see her grandmother's expression—as far as she was aware, Neve was still somewhere else, and her grandmother just happened to be there too.
"What's going on?" Neve asked, looking around her darkened room, save for the slanting shaft of moonlight spilling threw the window.
Her grandmother scoffed. "Silly girl...a cake with six candles has been waiting for you all night, and you've just forgotten about it?"
That wore off some of her nap's amnesia. She glanced up at her grandmother, who was tightly clasping her hand. "Oh yeah...I'm turning six tonight."
"Yes, Neve," her grandmother took on a more serious note when they stood outside the door to the drawing room, "but be cautious of your granduncle's present—he wouldn't tell me what it is that was inside it, so I can't foretell you of any shocks it might cause."
The memory of granduncle Algie's frequent visits to her room earlier, his conspiratorial smile straining his wrinkly face, cleared her head completely. But a weight dropped hard in her belly, the familiar feeling of dread returning as she relived his experiments in her head for a second.
Please don't let it be bad, she thought urgently, please don't let it be scary. She rubbed at the corners of her eyes and mouth hastily, trying to remove any vulnerabilities that he might point out and laugh at. Her grandmother urged her on, although Neve kept a little behind her, almost peering around her legs to look into the room and find where her grand relatives were seated.
They had left one of the armchair's clear. Her grandaunt Enid sat on one of the bolstered sofas, and granduncle Algie sat on an identical seat opposite her. Her grandmother took her seat on the other armchair that sat adjacent to grandaunt Enid's couch, and Neve doddered to the empty one, sullen that she would have to face Algie for the remainder of the night—grandaunt Enid made no sign to show she had even seen them, but granduncle Algie looked flushed with excitement, his knees bouncing erratically, eyes wide, mouth grinning.
There was a lengthy, oak coffee table between the two sofas', and atop them were three presents, all wrapped differently and with different colours and accessories.
It was impossible to not notice the largest of the presents, and the most menacing, despite the evident attempt at trying to make it less so; it was wrapped in hot pink paper with a bright sun-yellow bow slapped on its top, with a squiggly handwriting in black that read 'From your Granduncle Algie!'—but what was more alarming was the print of bars jutting out from the paper.
Neve felt the colour drain from her face. Her grandmother must have caught her expression, because she leaned forward swiftly and plucked off the table a smaller, more pliant package, wrapped in floral paper. It had a small, folded note attached to it and it shook before Neve's eyes as her grandmother dangled it in front of her.
"Well, we're this far into the night, Neve—open the gift!" her grandmother prodded, her arm resting primly on the armchair.
Neve stared at the present for a moment, saw the name Enid on the note, and took it with pink hands. When she opened the note, it simply read Happy 6th Birthday Neve. Slowly, cautiously, she tore the paper off and, as expected, was a pair of royal blue winter gloves with lighter blue 6's woven both palms. There were five other variations of colour and number in her closet, and she surprisingly did where them where necessary.
Colour bloomed in her face, blotching redly in her cheeks, and she was almost embarrassed at grandaunt Enid's soft smile, her naturally squinted eyes closed in leathery slits. "Th-thank you, Auntie Enid. I promise to wear it when it's colder."
She nodded and turned away, vacantly observing the ornaments and paintings decorated around the room. Her grandmother had been about to pick up her own present when granduncle Algie suddenly burst out of a tensely held silence.
"Oh, open mine, Neve," he cried, hauling his gigantic present from the table and stumbling with it to the edge of her chair. Neve flinched when it hit the ground with a resounding thud and, when a small growl emitted from its inside, she was sure her grandmother and grandaunt Enid had also stiffened. Granduncle Algie straightened and mopped his brow, grinning devilishly at Neve. "Your grandmother's can wait, but mine really can't. And I mean that quite literally."
Neve stared down at the wrapped-up container, her heart beating in her throat. She couldn't, for the life of her, imagine what could be in there. In accordance with that, the gifter of the present being granduncle Algie only made her chances of satisfaction and not being traumatised alongside the actual appearance of the gift, zero to a negative.
Still, she slid off the chair, cautious, her hands still clutching the armrests. The gift gave a lurch, an animalistic noise emitting from it. She tried not to jump (she did) and when she went to tear the paper from the box's side, granduncle Algie abruptly shouted: "No, no, no! Touch the ribbon at the top. It will unravel in the most majestic of ways—promise. Just you wait and see Neve! Go on!"
This is bad, she thought dejectedly. Her hands trembled and fidgeted bracingly. She could see in her peripheral her grandmother's frozen posture, shrewd eyes now fixed onto the box. Her grandaunt Enid had even sat up in her seat, watching the scene with a slightly ajar mouth. Time warped and slowed. She watched from above herself as Neve reached out to press the ribbon, her face half twisted in fear, half stuck in dreaded curiosity. Her granduncle was close behind her, but she couldn't even hear his breathing.
When she pressed the ribbon, it all happened very quickly.
Something came leaping out from inside the box, huge and leathery-skinned, but its surface was a dull, ashen green, cylindric in shape. It was alike to a gargantuan snake, its skin jutting with leaves and smears of dried soil. When Neve's head snapped up to look at it, she saw a large, narrow circle aloft its body, steam billowing out threw a wide mouth that slashed all the way around, lined with red, jagged teeth. There were wilted flowers in blue and purple rooted in the ridge of its neck and head.
Blearily, she realised it was no animal. It was a plant.
Her granduncle Algie screamed with the countenance of someone that had not caused this, taking cover behind grandaunt Enid's sofa, his cries audible over the grumbling roars.
Grandaunt Enid stared at the plant for a moment, then slowly, with fluttering eyes, keeled over and landed softly onto the sofa pillows. She didn't wake till the morning.
Her grandmother was the only one to draw her wand, though even she had to overcome her alarm as she followed the specimen's ascent from out of the container.
Neve was nothing but a deer in headlights, watching the plant as it frantically surveyed the room with wide, glassy eyes.
"Good god!," granduncle Algie screeched, peering over the sofa at the plant, "what on earth is that?"
"You should bloody well know that now, shouldn't you?" her grandmother shouted back, her cheeks uncharacteristically flushed.
She stared up at the plant with a near-empty head, numb and slow, her mind shutting down with every second. Why…she thought, dismayed. Not again.
The creature looked up at the ceiling, its movements swift and sharp, its grumbles a rumbling, roaring noise that bounced off the ornate wallpaper. Then it whipped it's head down to look straight at her. In that moment, she saw its eyes, glistening beads encased between swollen lids—they didn't look normal, didn't look…healthy, she settled. The leaves and flowers that sprouted from it were limp, and its green skin was dull and pale.
Grandmothers' orders for Neve to move as she pointed her wand to its head fell away from her like sand. It was only the plant and her, for just a second, the plant looking down at her with an inquisitive, solemn stillness. She wasn't sure what she felt, but there was a sadness in their stare.
And she realised, with a jolt, this was no monster. It truly was just a plant, looking for a way out, a way to survive. It didn't mean any danger—it wouldn't hurt her.
Neve raised her hand, slowly reaching up, palm open, eyes wide. From the corner of her eye, she saw her grandmother watching her with panic wrought on her face. She stepped forward.
Neve saw her mouth move, saw the spell, bright blue and fizzing, shoot out from the end of her wand. But she didn't see granduncle Algie stand from behind the sofa, reach into his robes and pull his own gnarled wand out. She only saw the counter-spell, whistling by in a red haze, fly towards grandmother's spell and extinguish it, like water dousing a fire.
She could imagine the tension suddenly permeating the air, but she had already touched the plant by then, its wrinkly skin pressing against her hand as it grew less frantic.
She could imagine the tension suddenly permeating the air, but she had already touched the plant by then, its wrinkly skin pressing against her hand as it grew less frantic.
Its mouth split open, and like an enthused dog, a long, fissured tongue lolled out between its teeth. She couldn't help but smile, patting it gently, its watery eyes shutting close.
Afterwards, when her grandmother had
She could imagine the tension suddenly permeating the air, but she had already touched the plant by then, its wrinkly skin pressing against her hand as it grew less frantic.
Its mouth split open, and like an enthused dog, a long, fissured tongue lolled out between its teeth. She couldn't help but smile, patting it gently, its watery eyes shutting close.
Its mouth split open, and like an enthused dog, a long, fissured tongue lolled out between its teeth. Her smile came on its own, the plants watery eyes shutting close as she petted it. Its skin was surprisingly warm, and she felt the urge to nuzzle into its neck.
Afterwards, when grandmother had lifted it outside, Neve carrying a lamp beside her and granduncle Algie anxiously following some distance behind them, she had said that she wasn't afraid Neve would get hurt.
"It was weak as is, and they trust easily, when they meet the right one to tend them," she had stated squarely, levitating the plant out of its box and rooting it into an empty plot in the Longbottom garden. Neve noticed the tattered roots that hung drily from its end—the plant's mouth fell open in relief, its breath stark against the black night sky as it settled into the soil. She looked behind her to Algie, who began conspicuously inspecting a glittering bush of roses.
The plant lowered its head down to Neve, cuddling its leathery skin against her cheek. She almost jumped at the feeling—it was strange for something to be this close to her, something as warm and openly affectionate as this. But nevertheless, she caressed it tenderly. She even felt a laugh roll out of her.
"I love it," she said to granduncle Algie, who she had heard shuffle closer to them.
He mumbled something under his breath then muttered, "It had not been so big when I'd found it, just so you know." She was aware the last part was not directed at her.
They had had a very heated conversation before, if that was what it could be called, her grandmother's shouts bouncing off the walls and plainly swallowing up granduncle Algie's objections. They had been so loud; Grandaunt Enid had woken up from the noise. Neve winced at the thought of having to witness that altercation.
Grandmother side-eyed him, her arms akimbo. "Well, enough damage's been done. Open your final present, Neve. Hopefully, it doesn't also pose anything life-threatening." Granduncle Algie hung his head. Neve grinned absentmindedly, her plant blowing a sour-smelling breath her way. She wasn't sure why, but she felt incredibly calm. Happy, perhaps, or satisfied, at least. Both were almost a shock.
Her grandmother extracted a rectangular box from her robes, wrapped in a pastel yellow colour paper with small daisies geometrically patterned on it. She passed it to her with a small smile. Neve grinned back and ripped the paper off it, her plant watching closely beside her.
It was a small set of drawers—four to be exact—with names of plants on them. When she turned it flat on her hand and opened one of them, a pile of seeds shifted about inside. The names were all magical plants, to her surprise. Grandmother always told her magical plants were best left alone by children. They were complex, fickle things, imbued with magic Neve had yet to learn or understand. Essentially, they were just too dangerous for her, and they should have been for a long time.
Neve looked up at grandmother, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. Her grandmother only smiled down at her, clasping her shoulder tightly. "Happy eighth birthday, Neve. Hope you liked your presents this year."
Before she could respond, she saw Grandaunt Enid come doddering down the stairs to the garden with her wand pointing upwards. Levitating in thin air was a towering, eight-tiered cake, sandwiched with white frosting and topped with bright fruit. And sticking out from between the strawberries and the peeled orange slices and kiwi fruit, were eight candles, the cool night breeze picking at their glinting flames.
Neve fell asleep with ease that night. No crying, no screaming in her pillow, no staring up at her ceiling and lying awake until her eyes ached, and she finally succumbed. She fell asleep soundly, with her plant curled up in its bed of moist soil, visible from the view of Neve's bedroom window.
She ended up calling it Giraffe, astonishingly, and kept the plant until it died a year later.
P.S. The next chapter may take a while. Enjoy :)