Author's Note – Quidditch League Round 11 Entry
Team: Tutshill Tornados
Position: Chaser 2
Prompt: Write about a character who loves nature
Additional prompts: sword (object), 2,875 (word count), 5th October 1998 (date)
Word count: 2, 875
FYI: Curse me for thinking I could wax poetic about Neville for almost 3,000 words (be kind to me?). Word count starts from 'Neville' and continues down to 'again', hitting that extra prompt quite nicely (thank Merlin!).
Extension used: No (4 of 5 previously used)
Sword of Darkness/Nature Intrudes
Neville Longbottom, new Apprentice to Herbology Mistress Pomona Sprout, walked into the Great Hall of Hogwarts with a confidence that was newly found yet strongly planted within the war hero's psyche. A place that he'd long ago held as the most magical sight he'd ever seen, he was coming into the Great Hall fresh from a war and only a few months after completing his NEWT exams. Today was the 5th of October, 1998, a day Neville would always remember as the beginning of his life. A fledgling seed always falling just shy of budding, Neville had never had such a sense of ownership over his life as he did in this moment. Looking around the hall, finally complete in its repairs, he breathed deeply and inhaled the charming scent of nostalgia.
It took a moment, a brief pause where Neville faltered and made to move towards the long, brown table that had been home to him and many other Gryffindors, before he realised that he was not and never again would be the seedling he once was. Turning towards the dais, the familiar pang stunning his heart as he recognised the changes from his own sorting almost a decade ago, Neville adjusted his course and walked boldly towards the staff table. He held his head high, determined that he would carry himself with the confidence and power that he had earned through blood, sweat and tears. He had fought doggedly for years to make it to a safer, happier wizarding world, and it was here in the heart of Hogwarts that he would begin to see the changes he so desired.
Halfway up the hall he is intercepted, stopping immediately and looking down at a familiar face. "Hey, Hadley, right?" At the girl's smile and nod, Neville smiled back and held out his hand. "How've you been? Holding up alright?"
"I'm doing okay," she said, returning his handshake with a shrug. "My parents and I helped with the rebuilding of Hogwarts over the summer and I'm beyond thankful that I get to finish my seventh year here."
"I can imagine you wouldn't be the only one," Neville mused, looking around the hall and seeing a few familiar faces, including one Hermione Granger who already had her head in a book. Some thing's would never change.
"It's not just classes I'm excited about though," Hadley responded, pulling Neville's attention back to her. She had a nervous yet hopeful look on her face that immediately set Neville's mind off into a hive of curiosity. "I and a few of the other seventh years were actually wondering if you'd still be running training sessions for the DA this year."
Neville frowned, thinking of the war time group with no small number of conflicting feelings – gratefulness and resignation chief among them. He didn't respond for a moment, contemplating his next words to avoid hurting the girl in front of him. For though she was both a seventh year and a former DA member, Neville saw her and many of the other students as girls and boys still.
Going through a war as the general of an army of children would do that to someone.
Neville took a breath, thinking back on Hadley's question with serious thought. An original member of the DA, Hadley and Neville had met when she had asked Harry out to the Yule ball all those years ago. Hearing the jokes that Ron, Seamus and Dean had made, Neville had sought out the girl to make sure she hadn't taken Harry's rejection or the boys' teasing to heart. What had developed was a bright, platonic friendship that had seen Hadley join their defence classes in her fourth year in an attempt to escape the educational clutches of Umbridge and the Ministry. She hadn't been involved in many of the war-related gambits Neville, Luna and Ginny had spearheaded last year, but had been a positive force in the group and a dedicated student.
"Hadley, the truth is that I don't know if we'll be starting the DA up again," he said honestly. "We aren't in dire straits for a secondary resistance movement against a tyrannical Dark Lord at the moment, not to mention the fact that most people want to stay as far away from fighting as possible. Besides, Harry and Ron aren't here this year and Hermione is neck deep in her studies at the moment."
"I'm not saying I want you to teach us how to fight, and I'm also not looking for the Golden Trio to do so either," she said, crossing her arms. "I don't know if you've noticed this, Apprentice Longbottom, but you're basically a professor now. I know for a fact that you'll be taking classes for the younger years, Luna already told me."
Neville scratched his head, confused. "What would you want with me though?"
"Neville, you're not only a war hero but also one of the most dependable, quietly knowledgeable, people I know! I want you to teach us defence, I want you to teach us duelling, I want you to teach us how we can use our magic in a positive way to benefit those around us. We don't even have to call it the DA anymore, we can come up with something entirely different," she said, evidently trying to appease him though she needn't bother. He was honestly contemplating it, which is what terrified him the most. Can I really teach students?
Neville eyed the girl in front of him, maintaining eye contact as he attempted to marshal his thoughts and give some kind of answer. "I can't say yes right away," he said, rushing to finish his thought at the pre-emptive grin on Hadley's face. "I don't even know if I'll say yes at all. What I will say is that I'll think about it, and I'll make a meeting with Headmistress McGonagall to find out about the requirements of building such a club."
"Oh, thank you, thank you so much!" Hadley said, hugging him tightly to which Neville could only respond in kind, stunned at the gesture. "This is going to make the world of difference to my last year at Hogwarts, having you back in charge of a club like this."
"Hang on, I didn't say that I'd do it," he said, though the protestation sounded weak even to his ears. Evidently Hadley had figured this out already also, for she eyed him with a clever look and a smirk that curled up the right side of her mouth.
"But you will," she said. "You wouldn't be asking McGonagall if you weren't going to."
With that dramatic final statement, she turned around and walked away, leaving Neville stunned in her wake. He took a minute, in which he was fully confident that he was gaping like a fish, before he turned and continued making his way to a chair that sat to the immediate right of Professor Sprout. As he set about putting his breakfast onto his plate, Neville reflected for a moment on the journey he'd made over the last three years.
-FLASHBACK-
5th October, 1995
Neville trudged along the winding path towards the Hogs Head, simultaneously excited and nervous to see what today would bring. When Hermione had asked him if he'd be willing to join the defence organisation she, Ron and (unknowingly) Harry were forming, he'd jumped at the chance to be involved. Not only because he had a steady hatred for Umbridge festering like a burgeoning weed in his heart, but he knew he'd need all the help he could get against Voldemort and his Death Eaters when they finally decided to come out in the open. He believed and trusted Harry, and he just wanted to be able to help him when the time came.
He knew as he stood, he wasn't impressive. Harry had fought Voldemort multiple times and had done so with his two best friends by his side. By comparison, Neville had nothing he was so passionate about or accomplished in other than his plants. Neville's love for nature, however, had never been an area to earn him much acclaim. Not from his peers, not from most of his professors and certainly not from his grandmother. Neville had wondered, when he was younger, what he'd have to do to be seen as brave, a true Gryffindor in behaviour as well as blood, and he had continuously come up short. It was as if no matter what he did, Mother Magic seemed determined that this would be his lot in life.
He loved nature, he knew he had a gift, but it was hard to see his gift as a strength when it was so openly pushed aside for the more important qualities of bravery and valor. Neville had never faced trials and tribulations in becoming more knowledgeable about plant life, not like some of his peers had when facing off real Dark Lords. So, Neville was determined to make the most of this opportunity and make something of himself in the process. Using the motivation of helping his friends and fighting for what was right, Neville walked into the Hogs Head that day not realising that his thoughts already proved that he was a true Gryffindor, nor that he decidedly did belong to the house he was working so hard to achieve.
-FLASHBACK
5th October 1997
Two years after the fateful day which heralded the start of the DA and a fledgling resistance movement, Neville had grown in strength and stature both. Now no longer the struggling, fledgling flora that he had once felt he was, Neville stood firm against an onslaught of deceit, death and Death Eaters alike. It had been a month since he'd started what was meant to be his seventh year at Hogwarts and he had been reflecting on the changes he'd already made in response to the threats that surrounded him and his friends.
Neville now thought of himself as a climbing vine, eager to grow and cover as many of his friends in his protection as he could. It was not true to say that Neville had abandoned the self-doubt he felt, nor had he entirely outgrown the perspective that Herbology was a weaker skillset to have perfected. However, Neville knew the size of the fight that they were now in the thick of, and was determined to use every piece of knowledge and expertise he held to come out safely on the other side. Making potions by harvesting plant ingredients, firming up potential allies in the creatures that lived in and around Hogwarts and using anything in his power to develop contingency plans for when he inevitably had to mobilise the students in the DA and take some sort of action.
Neville hadn't walked into that meeting two years ago and come out a changed person. But he had exited the Hogs Head that day with a stronger focus on his true purpose – protecting and growing with the students of the DA and Hogwarts as a whole. He was no longer going to endanger that mission by second guessing himself. He might have been unsure of his ability to lead the DA without the assistance of the Golden Trio, but allowing his natural love and ability to flourish had only strengthened him.
Voldemort certainly had a way of putting things into perspective.
-FLASHBACK-
2nd May 1998
The final battle had been raging around him for what felt like days but Neville knew was only hours. How he'd gotten to this point, he was unsure, but he knew wanting to help Harry had driven him here.
Pain. Pain was all he felt; it blocked his thoughts and surrounded his sense, leaving him no option for escape.
He managed to crack his eyes open, the sorting hat tilting back just enough on his head for him to see it.
The snake. The one thing Harry had asked him to destroy before he'd...the thought to terrible to even acknowledge, Neville determinedly focused all of his power on tracking the snake. He had to kill it, there was no other option. He would break this body bind, overpower this silencing charm and do the task Harry had left him.
With that thought, Neville felt something drop to his head, just as he felt motor control returning to his limbs. Remembering a story Harry had once told him about a basilisk and the sword of Gryffindor, Neville realised what he had to do. Summoning all the strength he could, he hunched over slightly, pulled the sorting hat from his head and, from its depths, withdrew the sword of Godric Gryffindor.
His breath stolen by such a magnificent sight momentarily, Neville quickly gathered his wits and moved forward before he could think any further. A jarring dissonance reached the periphery of his external awareness, but Neville was solely focused on the task before him. Drawing his arms up, Neville took an almighty roar, releasing his rage as he dropped his arms and sliced off the head of his target. As the knife cut through the snake's skin, stopping for moments before it continued through the rest of the body, Neville felt a release like he'd never known before. Letting the sword drop and the pent-up emotion leave his body had left Neville feeling lighter than he had in years.
It wasn't until later, much later in fact, when Neville would contemplate what had happened during those brief few moments. How he'd felt when the sword had pierced the snake's skin, the strength and power he'd felt rolling through his limbs. And he'd been the one to summon that power, him, Neville Longbottom, nature loving green thumb of Gryffindor tower. He thought back to the year he'd had, the rebuilding that no doubt lay before him, and the endless possibilities for what he might pursue in the future, and he laughed. Laughed for the pain, laughed for the trauma that he wasn't ready to focus on, and laughed for the fact that he'd been hiding behind the guise of his own perceived weakness for far too long. It was only as he looked at it now, safely on this other side of the massive finally conflict, that he realised just how much his perceived weaker skillset had helped him and his friends throughout the past year of his life. If Neville had been anyone else, anyone other than the bright, nature minded individual that he was, he wouldn't have been the same person he was now. And who he was now was something that he was going to stop taking for granted.
It would be days until regret started seeping into his soul. Neville didn't regret the lives he'd taken, he certainly didn't regret killing the likes of Voldemort's snake, even if it was a part of Mother Nature's creations. But he would mourn them: he would mourn all they could have been.
-FLASHBACK-
Neville blinked, coming out of his reflection and all of a sudden being hit by the cacophony of a full Great Hall at breakfast time on a Monday. He blinked owlishly, depositing the spoon he was holding back in the dish that held scrambled eggs, and took a swig of pumpkin juice to wet his dry throat. He breathed deeply, shaking himself out of his thoughts firmly, and contemplated where he stood now. Apprentice to renowned Herbology Professor, with a look at filling exactly that role in a few years when he'd earned his own Mastery, Neville finally felt like the man he'd tried to be. The sword of darkness that had lain heavy on his heart had been liberated by the burgeoning nature that was Neville's love and passion, until it had all but forced it out of his soul. Now here he was, satisfied in a field he adored and about to (hopefully) get the chance to educate students in an area he'd become quite attached to.
He realised now the power that came with love and passion. No Neville had never been the warrior that led from the front. He had been a general though, and a leader, and he was not willing to go back to what he now saw as a shadow of his true potential. When he had been talking to Hadley just before, he'd realised that she had seen him and associated him with hope and possibility. What he was only now coming to terms with was the fact that that hope and possibility that Neville seems to exemplify for Hadley was the same hope and possibility that the nature around him promised. Nature that Neville took pride in nurturing and protecting so that it would continue to grow and evolve.
Where his life would take him from this point, Neville didn't know. But one thing he was completely certain of was that he was enough; he didn't have to be anything more or less than he was, and his passion for nature made him into the individual he was and would continue to be. It was not weakness to covet a passion in this field, and from this point onwards Neville would work hard to ensure he never fell into such thinking again.