Prompt: Write about someone being weak or frail
(via Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - Term #12 - Assignment #3 - Culinary Arts: Pasta - Task #11: Vermicelli)
Word count: 304
Summary: Being dropped from a window doesn't take away Neville's love of plants.
When Neville is eight years old, his Great Uncle Algie drops him upside-down from an upstairs window. He does not bounce. He breaks both of his legs, and experiences paralysis from the waist down. Neville will never walk on his own two feet again.
The brightly-robed healers whisper fretfully amongst themselves when Neville arrives in the emergency room with his Great Uncle Algie and his Great Aunt Enid, but his diagnosis does not change. The fact of the matter is that while most healers are expert spell-casters when it comes to mending bone and replacing stolen blood, the spinal cord is something else entirely. Neville cries when he finds out. Not only is he a Squib, but a bed-ridden one, too.
Of course, Uncle Algie feels terribly sorry about the whole thing. He never meant to hurt the boy. He just wanted to watch him fly. Neville says nothing when he hears. The whole family seems to avoid Neville in the aftermath of the incident. Augusta in particular seems perturbed by the whole series of events.
Eventually, someone gets their hands on a Muggle wheelchair and a few expository books, and Neville learns how to use a wheelchair. He's rolling forward. Even if it's not what everyone thought he would be doing, Neville has to admit, if only in the quiet corridors of his mind, that having a wheelchair is plenty cool. After that, he fills his days with endless adventures, traveling from one end of the Longbottom mansion to the other. He entertains himself by talking to the maids and butlers who work in the family estate, befriending the little guy and taking up a series of personal studies in the library. Neville will never attend Hogwarts, but home is a close second.
One of the maids takes pity on the young boy, trapped in a wheelchair, and takes him outside to see the back gardens. Little does she know, but she changes Neville's life forever. In another world, Neville's charm-work had always been inferior to his love of plants. Here, he really shines.
A/N: If there's enough interest, I'll write a longer ending.