Title: More than Hope
Rating: pg-13 for.......................fun
Spoilers: a million for everything
Pairing: literally, dozens
A/N: I'm in this whole perspective phase. I think that its cool to see what
the unsung characters think about the main ones. I thought that a garbage
man would have a good perspective, or a barkeeper...like tom at the leaky
cauldron. If you like weird perspectives, read giving notice by quoth the
raven. A+ x infinity
-HFS
PS: I hate the title, too - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - More than Hope
People say that I look sad. I hear, at least all the damn time, "Hey, Neville, cheer up!" It's not like I'm ungrateful for that, but it seems like people think they know exactly who I am just by looking at me. Of course, they'd never admit that, but everyone does it.
Even me.
So, from the first year at Hogwarts, I had this vision of the future. A nice vision, very homey and warm, I think. People would assume that I'm a pessimist, but I'm really more of an optimist. I kept this cheery vision, and its many evolutions, with me, even when the Dark Lord was encroaching the world, Death Eaters at every turn. I held on to the vision, the thought, the concept that after this, everyone would be ok. Needless to say, after the war, the vision changed again.
But now I'm getting ahead of myself.
So right, the vision starts like this. A little cottage with a white picket fence sits in Hogsmeade somewhere. The garden isn't that big, but it has typical flowers, magical and ordinary alike. In the whole vision, my sight stays on the cottage. You can also see the front doors of the two houses on either side of the cottage. The angle of vision never changes, throughout my vision. Well, like I said, it starts like this: A newsboy flies by on his broom, tossing a copy of the Daily Prophet onto the sidewalk. A few minutes pass. Then, Ron (an adult of course, late twenties/early thirties-ish) walks out in a royal blue bathrobe to retrieve the paper. He yawns as he pulls up, clutching it in his hand. Now, Hermione's head pops out of the door, calling him, declaring breakfast. Ron's wedding band glints in the sun, and Hermione's sparkles. Ron's just heading back inside as a swarm of knee-high red-headed children burst out of the house, and I could never quite decide on how many.
They pull their father inside, and Hermione Weasley laughs, her children are as commanding as she was. The Weasleys are all inside. The door shuts. Later, Ron walks out, in Ministry robes, calling that he loves you! to the interior of the house before closing the door. He is preparing to Disapparate when the door of the house on the left swings open. A sleepy- eyed Harry Potter emerges; he is not wearing his glasses. He reaches down for his own paper, and Ron shouts G'Morning mate! at the top of his voice, making Harry drop the paper. Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley exchange pleasantries, none of them specific enough to exist in my mind. But Ron always taps his watch before Disapparating, leaving Harry chuckling and shaking his head. He goes inside. Comes back out later, wearing Quidditch robes. He Disapparates. Hermione comes out of her house, her hand holding that of one of her children, who in turn is holding their sibling's hand, and so on and so forth. They walk out of sight, presumably to a daycare center, then work, Hermione is no stay-at-home-mom, she is woman, you will hear her roar (probably before you see her).
The day passes quickly, like time lapse photography; I thought later when I was aware of such a thing. Harry and Ron Apparate suddenly, and they are talking too fast to be real before time gets out of time-lapse and into real-time. Ron asks if they will see him tonight and Harry nods and they turn to their houses, just as Hermione and her brood return, in the same cute little chain as always. Hermione and Ron share a little welcome home kiss. The children catch sight of the boy who lived, and chanting about their Uncle Harry, they pull on Harry's robes until he falls down, comically exaggerated, and they climb on top of him. The Trio of Hogwarts shares a look. Hermione says something, and the Weasleys retreat inside, as does Harry.
It is evening. Ron has set up a grille and table in the front yard, if only because this is my vision and the front of the house is too important to just vanish. Ron burns his hands a bit, but gets some meat on the grille. Hermione comes out, clucks her tongue, her hands on her hips. Ron says something about the Muggle way, and Hermione sighs, thanking Arthur sarcastically. Ron taps his watch, and, on cue, Harry comes out as the Thomas-Browns, the Finnigan-Patils, the Weasley-Johnsons, the Weasley- Bells, the Weasleys, and the Weasley-Clearwaters all Apparate onto the Weasley-Grangers front lawn, their children come in nanoseconds later with portkeys. The children are all about the same age, they run off somewhere to play.
Later, Fred and George are just about to show off a few new Wheezes when the front door of the house on the right opens, and Malfoy walks out, with Pansy at his heels. He walks over to the barbeque, wife in tow. He and Ron have a little match of wits, and Seamus is just about to get angry, trying to get Parvati to let go, when Pansy produces a potato salad and puts it the table as Hermione hands her a plate. Malfoy becomes Draco as he and Ron chuckle a bit, and then becomes Father as his own child walks onto the lawn. The silver-haired boy talks, rather stiffly for a child, to Hermione, she sends him off with the rest of the children.
Unrealistic, but, what can I say? Optimist at heart.
It is evening. Everyone and their offspring, save Fred and George, are sitting on the lawn on blankets. Fred and George's heads poke out a second storey window of the cottage, they are grinning maliciously, and mischievously, respectively. They set off fireworks; the children clap their hands and the adults chuckle. Harry makes a comment about the fireworks, and all present redheads blush, while the rest snicker. Molly is about to say something back but a large ariel bomb makes her jump into Arthur's arms. Dean imitates this, and everyone laughs, even the Malfoys.
It is night. Ron and Hermione bid everyone goodnight, Lavender grabs Percy and marches him over to Penelope, he is talking too much, they'll never get home at this rate. Angelina and Katie do the cheek kissing thing the French do and Fred grabs Angelina and their daughters before another subject can come up. Everyone who doesn't live in my line of sight Disapparates in a cacophony* of pops, children with portkeys again, "good- byes" and "see-you-laters" still echoing on the street. A Weasley-Granger boy has fallen asleep on the grass; Ron scoops him up as the other kids file into the house, drowsily, Ron following behind. Hermione waves to Draco, Pansy, and their son as their door closes. Harry gets up and walks home too; Hermione chases after him, shoving leftovers into him hands. He groans and smile, thanks her, and goes inside. Hermione goes in to, and all the lights from all three houses all go out at once.
That was the future as I saw it in my first year.
Of course, I was never in it, because I am Neville, and what place do I have among people like Harry and Ron and Hermione?
It changed, to be sure. In second year, Ginny was Mrs. Harry Potter, and they had a daughter. For a few fleeting hours, Ginny was gone again, she was forever an eleven year old skeleton beneath the school, and Harry lived alone. But she came back to life, and she and Harry had a son in addition, as compensation for her temporary death.
In the third year, Harry was missing a few fingers from a duel with Sirius Black, whom he of course had defeated. Ginny wore her wedding band on her middle finger as he did, because that was as far as they went on his ring hand. I realized that Ron's rat was never in the vision, if not only because now he never could be. So, the Weasley-Grangers had Crookshanks instead.
Fourth year, Harry could count to ten again. For a few weeks, when he and Ron were fighting, Harry stayed in the vision, the two men simply laughed louder at each others jokes, another compensation my mind created. Odd that people are often worried over the problems of someone they look up to. Harry was sad, though, and they all toasted to Cedric at some time between the Malfoy's arrival and the fireworks.
When I was fifteen, Ron's sister was Mrs. Virginia Corner thank you very much, and Harry was jokingly called Mr. Chang, because he was so quiet compared to Cho. They had a small son who flew very well, though he never was on broomstick in the whole vision, but you knew anyway. Ron was in a wheelchair for life for a few hours, when the brain did whatever it did. That night in the Department of Mysteries, everyone was dead for a little while.
In sixth year, the entire vision changed. The very core of this future, the central family was the most obvious path time could take, that Ron and Hermione would stop bickering like a married couple and start bickering as a married couple, was broken. It was obvious to me, and Seamus said it was to him and Dean too, after Ron and Hermione had a particularly geriatric fight, that they would get married. But that was not to be, or at least, it didn't seem that way when we were in our sixth year. At the moment they blushingly made their announcement in late June, I had an absurd image of Harry and Ron living together in the cottage from every other future, except it was pink and purple, and the two of them spoke with lisps and said "oh my god" every five seconds.
Horribly stereotypical of me.
Then, this image was replaced by a particularly morbid end of the year future, the cottage was a dark and horrid place, nothing alive anywhere, only the Dark Mark hovering over it, my year-mates dead inside it, though you couldn't see them through the windows. But, as I heard of how the Trio escaped from the Death Eaters, the vision was momentarily replaced with my first year one, but I shook it off. The future was different now. Over the summer going into seventh year, I abandoned the vision. I didn't know what anything was going to turn out as, and that scared me, I had always had that vision to give me....hope? I wasn't mad and Harry and Ron, I didn't blame them, but it's just easier for the rest of us if they're perfect, making a perfect world.
God, I'm digging my grave here, so I think I have to say that Harry and Ron being together does not bother me at all. The vision, any vision, was absent for most of seventh year, until Christmas Day, 1997 when I found Harry and Ron kissing as they cried in the empty common room. I scurried back up to the dorm, sure they hadn't seen me. In that instant, seeing them scared and in love, emotion pouring from them in waves, I saw the gods die, replaced by mere human beings.
Strange to say, I suppose. I guess before they were like gods or something. Heroes. Everyone needs heroes don't they? But no, heroes are for children, and it was better to have the real future than the ideal. Seventh year, I had the Vision, and it held through Graduation, when the Dark Lord himself...itself burst in during the ceremony and dueled Harry on the spot, after his Death eaters fell.
Harry survived, of course, because he was Harry Potter. I had my doubts, if You-Know-Who cast a particularly nasty spell, the Vision was a vision of a smoldering ruin where corpses lived. I thought absurdly of my insufferable Vision as one of my friends was about to die...how selfish of me. The Vision twisted and burned and the white picket fence was torn away, one picket at a time, as the Dar-oh all right, as Voldemort, aimed his wand at a spread- eagled Harry. Harry was about to die and all I could think of was how I would get on, not being able to guess what the future held.
I'm such a bastard.
However, Harry did not die that day, he survived the Killing Curse a second time, and this time had the strength to kill Voldemort for real. Another great mystery, but that was hardly on anyone's mind as Ron ran up to Harry and kissed him full on the lips, revealing their secret to the non- Gryffindor Seventh Year world.
The entire Hogwarts faculty, all the students, and all the parents gasped, or cheered, or cried as the Most Emotional Kiss in the History of the World took place after the Greatest Duel in the History of the World.
The next morning, as we prepared to leave Hogwarts, I told Harry about my visions, and my post-Graduation Vision, with Ron listening vaguely as he packed. I felt they both had the right to know what I had thought of them from first year until today. When I finished, Harry cried a little, he said it was a wonderful Vision, but I forgot one thing. I asked him what. He pointed to me and said, Neville, you're our friend too, you're real too.
It was a horribly kind thing to say, and I cried a little too. You don't have to let us make your visions, Neville, said Ron, who was whispering, because a full voice would waver with emotion. You're part of it all. You're here. You can do more than hope.
In that moment, everything that everyone said meant so much less. I didn't feel like I was depending on others to make the visions, to make the future. It was my moment of epiphany. I sniffled and thanked them, and sauntered away anti-climactically
Later, as I sat in the Hogwarts Express, I thought of The Vision, the new version of the Vision with me in it. It starts out focused on the same cottage, same field of sight as the visions, the Vision, but now it was The Vision.
A newsboy flies by on his broom, tossing a copy of the Daily Prophet onto the sidewalk. A few minutes pass. Then, Ron (an adult of course, late twenties/early thirties-ish) walks out in a royal blue bathrobe to retrieve the paper. He yawns as he pulls up, clutching it in his hand. Harry Potter, eyes uncovered by glass and wire, opens the very same front door silently, Ron doesn't notice a thing. Harry sneaks up behind his friend and lover, and clamps his hands over his eyes. Ron grins as Harry utters the quintessential covering-someone's-eyes phrase. Ron says Snape and Harry giggles, a boyish habit he never grew out of. Then Ron will turn around and say, Aha! and jab his finger at Harry accusingly. Harry will gasp and Ron will take this opportunity to kiss him. They will grin slyly and go back inside, hand in hand in newspaper. The door shuts.
On the left, Hermione Krum will emerge, fetching her own paper. Viktor's head appears in their second-storey bedroom window, and he will say something sleepily in Bulgarian. Hermione will laugh and say something back, he chuckles at such wit. Crookshanks slinks out of the cat door and a toddler's hand reaches out to grab his tail. Hermione will stifle a cry, she's only 2 and a half, it's a dangerous world! She goes back inside and is scolding the child, her bossy yet affectionate voice resounds throughout the street, waking up Mrs. Ginny Longbottom, of the house on the right, who tells her round-faced husband to wake up, (I always slept like the dead) and that she doesn't cook breakfast. Neville sighs and you can hear them trundling down the stairs, waking a set of twins, a girl and a boy, named Freida and Balder. The children chatter excitedly, and I make some attempt to talk to them, but Ginny wants the breakfast that is typical of her third trimester, cabbage and chocolate frogs. Fried.
Meanwhile, Ronald Weasley, in the same Ministry robes he's worn in every future, Disapparates, not before giving a peck on Professor Potter's cheek, who must walk to Hogwarts, the wards are as strong as ever.
Viktor prefers flying, not surprisingly, and takes his small daughter with him; he will drop her off on his way to the Quidditch store in Diagon Alley. Hermione uses Floo powder; it is risky to Apparate into the crowded Muggle relations section on the Ministry, though Ron does it anyway. She'd have to scold him at work. The Longbottoms work and school here in Hogsmeade, they walk downtown every morning. My wife tells Seamus to wake up; there is the slamming of a door as the Thomas-Patils come out of their house, with similar concerns to the bedridden Irishman. He's always late when Lavender gets a call at St. Mungo's in the middle of the night. Dean and Parvati "pop" away, and my family and I walk along.
Around midday, Lavender comes home, and we can only hear it, she yells at Seamus, and he Disapparates very quickly, running from her as fast as possible, he didn't even tie up his shoes yet, Mr. Eeylops of the Owl Emporium will later tell him.
Hermione is back just as the Ra is slain for the millionth time, staining the sky red. Viktor and young Jagoda touch down as she opens the door to go inside, Viktor gives Hermione a kiss of the cheek and Crookshanks purrs insistently, he pats him on the head.
Ronald Arthur Weasley of 17 Prospero Court, Hogsmeade, Apparates onto his front lawn quite disheveled, his red hair standing up nearly on end, and one has to stifle the instinct to attempt and put it out. He would probably find this immensely funny, but you'll find yourself sans two front teeth if you make any other flaming jokes, especially if Harry is present. Which isn't a problem, because Harry is not present, he is late again, probably have a rough time letting Headmaster Snape (Dumbledore passed years ago) allow several of his students just up and go to Hogsmeade for a barbeque of all things. Young Solon Malfoy excluded, he's a Slytherin and has a get-out- of-Hogwarts-free card. In any case, Harry was late. And Ron couldn't Muggle cook for his life.
It's lucky, then, that Ginny Longbottom comes home from work early, saying she felt sick because of the baby, but all she really wanted was some cauliflower and grape juice. She has to stifle a laugh as her youngest older brother pulls a Seamus and scorches his eyebrow trying to get the grille coals lit. Like Arthur, ickle Ronniekins matches his enthusiasm only with his ineptitude. Ginny successfully sets up the grille just as Neville and the children come skipping down the street, chanting the rhyme that is all Neville recalls of his pre-insane-parents childhood. Or rather, infanthood. Neville gives Ginny a peck on the cheek as she turns the grille over, Ron has put it on upside-down. Neville and Ron discuss the Ministry's need for a head-ectomy from the proverbial arse, and the young Longbottoms chatter to Ron, who loves kids. Which is lucky, because he is a Weasley, and he expects a score or so nieces and nephews all told. As Ginny marinates the steak, Professor Potter Apparates next to Ron, only to be attacked by Virginia's brood. Several witchlights fill the air, signaling Hermione's entrance and level- headedness, it's getting dark. Jagoda, Balder and Freida clap as Neville makes one turn into a dog, which Crookshanks hisses at. Food is served as the slew of Weasleys and friends arrive, Apparating, portkeying, or just crossing the way. True to Ron's prediction, at this rate of production the dozen or so nieces, nephews and neighborhood kids will be stacked on top of each other to conserve space.
Draco and Seamus converse in civilized tones, and Draco actually cracks a smile when Finnegan does a comical exaggeration of Mr. Eeylops. Pansy is swapping recipes with Angelina Johnson-Weasley, who absolutely loves your spongecake, Pansy, wherever did you get the recipe?
Solon Malfoy and Balder, best mates since the womb are scaring the younger girls with tales of the Green Man, and Dhisana Patil-Thomas almost cries until George and Katie's second daughter, Rebecca promptly tells them they're full of sodding shit. George grimaces as he smiles, and asks her where she heard that from. She points to him, and Molly, Katie, and Ginny (whose mood is swinging as a wife-trading party) all smack him upside the head. Fred grimaces in pain at seeing hisotherself being assaulted, but Penelope tactfully breaks the tension, serving up the desert.
God Pansy, how do you do it?
As the group of parents, children, siblings, friends, and lovers munches away on sweet pastries and candies, the Weasley twins fire off the biggest damned rocket in the history of the universe, no exaggeration. It is super- double-what-the-hell-was-that at least, exploding into a variety of magical creature-shaped clouds of magic and burning matter. The creatures fly around to everyone's enjoyment, and a mischievous grin plays across identical faces as they watch their firework beasts spell out 'Harry and Ron have something to tell you".
Blushing as Weasley-y as is Weasley possible, Ron pulls Harry close and holds out a pair of (damn manly) gold wedding bands. Before Harry can finish the word "married", he and Ron are buried under a pile of close friends trying to hug and kiss and congratulate them. Arthur mutters that they finally got to their senses, but does not share these sentiments, tactful old man.
After that, the night, thankfully, mercifully, winds down. Percy looks flustered, he was always expecting that Harry and Ron would cry out that it was a trick and that they were straight as arrows all along and ha-ha wasn't that a good one?
He congratulates them all the same, though he stalls on that for a while after Dean gives a rare show of emotion and hugs both Ron and Harry at once, teary eyed.
As Zeke Clearwater-Weasley begins to snore, the unspoken word among the adults is good night, it was a great time Ron, Harry. The sounds of Portkeys, Disapparition, and footfalls are especially loud in the suddenly still night. Harry and Ron are alone in their yard as the moon hits its zenith, crescent light giving Prospero Court an eerie, if not romantic glow. The host couple has lain down on the stars, lying on top of itself. Harry and Ron's hair mixes, a Halloween collage of color, or, in Harry's case, non-color. They sit in silence as the lights of the houses all go out, Hermione's bedroom is last, she's probably keeping Viktor up with the impossibly bright light she uses for reading. Snuggled up against his
FIANCE!
, Harry whispers.
"Hey Ron." "Yeah, mate?" "Would you change it all?" "What all, Har?" "The past I guess." Silence and consideration. Then... "Maybe, but not if it changed a certain thing." "What's that?" "Going to sleep like this"
But Ron doesn't have to worry about not sleeping with Harry on their lawn, because that's what it's like in my The Vision. I guess I have some Seer blood in me, because that final Vision that Harry and Ron helped me make as we left Hogwarts was true to the letter. Despite the millions of ways I saw it go, the future turned out like this, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
Fin
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I think I like this story, but you know
I had to get in some domestic fluff and throw in some philosophical crap
(courtesy Neville)
Oh and by the way
Everyone who doesn't live in my line of sight Disapparates in a
cacophony* of pops, children with portkeys again, "good-byes" and "see-
you-laters" still echoing on the street.
*this is my favorite word in the entire English language, for reasons
entirely unknown.
So review please I guess, be they flames, questions, or even a positive
little note
-HFS
-HFS
PS: I hate the title, too - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - More than Hope
People say that I look sad. I hear, at least all the damn time, "Hey, Neville, cheer up!" It's not like I'm ungrateful for that, but it seems like people think they know exactly who I am just by looking at me. Of course, they'd never admit that, but everyone does it.
Even me.
So, from the first year at Hogwarts, I had this vision of the future. A nice vision, very homey and warm, I think. People would assume that I'm a pessimist, but I'm really more of an optimist. I kept this cheery vision, and its many evolutions, with me, even when the Dark Lord was encroaching the world, Death Eaters at every turn. I held on to the vision, the thought, the concept that after this, everyone would be ok. Needless to say, after the war, the vision changed again.
But now I'm getting ahead of myself.
So right, the vision starts like this. A little cottage with a white picket fence sits in Hogsmeade somewhere. The garden isn't that big, but it has typical flowers, magical and ordinary alike. In the whole vision, my sight stays on the cottage. You can also see the front doors of the two houses on either side of the cottage. The angle of vision never changes, throughout my vision. Well, like I said, it starts like this: A newsboy flies by on his broom, tossing a copy of the Daily Prophet onto the sidewalk. A few minutes pass. Then, Ron (an adult of course, late twenties/early thirties-ish) walks out in a royal blue bathrobe to retrieve the paper. He yawns as he pulls up, clutching it in his hand. Now, Hermione's head pops out of the door, calling him, declaring breakfast. Ron's wedding band glints in the sun, and Hermione's sparkles. Ron's just heading back inside as a swarm of knee-high red-headed children burst out of the house, and I could never quite decide on how many.
They pull their father inside, and Hermione Weasley laughs, her children are as commanding as she was. The Weasleys are all inside. The door shuts. Later, Ron walks out, in Ministry robes, calling that he loves you! to the interior of the house before closing the door. He is preparing to Disapparate when the door of the house on the left swings open. A sleepy- eyed Harry Potter emerges; he is not wearing his glasses. He reaches down for his own paper, and Ron shouts G'Morning mate! at the top of his voice, making Harry drop the paper. Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley exchange pleasantries, none of them specific enough to exist in my mind. But Ron always taps his watch before Disapparating, leaving Harry chuckling and shaking his head. He goes inside. Comes back out later, wearing Quidditch robes. He Disapparates. Hermione comes out of her house, her hand holding that of one of her children, who in turn is holding their sibling's hand, and so on and so forth. They walk out of sight, presumably to a daycare center, then work, Hermione is no stay-at-home-mom, she is woman, you will hear her roar (probably before you see her).
The day passes quickly, like time lapse photography; I thought later when I was aware of such a thing. Harry and Ron Apparate suddenly, and they are talking too fast to be real before time gets out of time-lapse and into real-time. Ron asks if they will see him tonight and Harry nods and they turn to their houses, just as Hermione and her brood return, in the same cute little chain as always. Hermione and Ron share a little welcome home kiss. The children catch sight of the boy who lived, and chanting about their Uncle Harry, they pull on Harry's robes until he falls down, comically exaggerated, and they climb on top of him. The Trio of Hogwarts shares a look. Hermione says something, and the Weasleys retreat inside, as does Harry.
It is evening. Ron has set up a grille and table in the front yard, if only because this is my vision and the front of the house is too important to just vanish. Ron burns his hands a bit, but gets some meat on the grille. Hermione comes out, clucks her tongue, her hands on her hips. Ron says something about the Muggle way, and Hermione sighs, thanking Arthur sarcastically. Ron taps his watch, and, on cue, Harry comes out as the Thomas-Browns, the Finnigan-Patils, the Weasley-Johnsons, the Weasley- Bells, the Weasleys, and the Weasley-Clearwaters all Apparate onto the Weasley-Grangers front lawn, their children come in nanoseconds later with portkeys. The children are all about the same age, they run off somewhere to play.
Later, Fred and George are just about to show off a few new Wheezes when the front door of the house on the right opens, and Malfoy walks out, with Pansy at his heels. He walks over to the barbeque, wife in tow. He and Ron have a little match of wits, and Seamus is just about to get angry, trying to get Parvati to let go, when Pansy produces a potato salad and puts it the table as Hermione hands her a plate. Malfoy becomes Draco as he and Ron chuckle a bit, and then becomes Father as his own child walks onto the lawn. The silver-haired boy talks, rather stiffly for a child, to Hermione, she sends him off with the rest of the children.
Unrealistic, but, what can I say? Optimist at heart.
It is evening. Everyone and their offspring, save Fred and George, are sitting on the lawn on blankets. Fred and George's heads poke out a second storey window of the cottage, they are grinning maliciously, and mischievously, respectively. They set off fireworks; the children clap their hands and the adults chuckle. Harry makes a comment about the fireworks, and all present redheads blush, while the rest snicker. Molly is about to say something back but a large ariel bomb makes her jump into Arthur's arms. Dean imitates this, and everyone laughs, even the Malfoys.
It is night. Ron and Hermione bid everyone goodnight, Lavender grabs Percy and marches him over to Penelope, he is talking too much, they'll never get home at this rate. Angelina and Katie do the cheek kissing thing the French do and Fred grabs Angelina and their daughters before another subject can come up. Everyone who doesn't live in my line of sight Disapparates in a cacophony* of pops, children with portkeys again, "good- byes" and "see-you-laters" still echoing on the street. A Weasley-Granger boy has fallen asleep on the grass; Ron scoops him up as the other kids file into the house, drowsily, Ron following behind. Hermione waves to Draco, Pansy, and their son as their door closes. Harry gets up and walks home too; Hermione chases after him, shoving leftovers into him hands. He groans and smile, thanks her, and goes inside. Hermione goes in to, and all the lights from all three houses all go out at once.
That was the future as I saw it in my first year.
Of course, I was never in it, because I am Neville, and what place do I have among people like Harry and Ron and Hermione?
It changed, to be sure. In second year, Ginny was Mrs. Harry Potter, and they had a daughter. For a few fleeting hours, Ginny was gone again, she was forever an eleven year old skeleton beneath the school, and Harry lived alone. But she came back to life, and she and Harry had a son in addition, as compensation for her temporary death.
In the third year, Harry was missing a few fingers from a duel with Sirius Black, whom he of course had defeated. Ginny wore her wedding band on her middle finger as he did, because that was as far as they went on his ring hand. I realized that Ron's rat was never in the vision, if not only because now he never could be. So, the Weasley-Grangers had Crookshanks instead.
Fourth year, Harry could count to ten again. For a few weeks, when he and Ron were fighting, Harry stayed in the vision, the two men simply laughed louder at each others jokes, another compensation my mind created. Odd that people are often worried over the problems of someone they look up to. Harry was sad, though, and they all toasted to Cedric at some time between the Malfoy's arrival and the fireworks.
When I was fifteen, Ron's sister was Mrs. Virginia Corner thank you very much, and Harry was jokingly called Mr. Chang, because he was so quiet compared to Cho. They had a small son who flew very well, though he never was on broomstick in the whole vision, but you knew anyway. Ron was in a wheelchair for life for a few hours, when the brain did whatever it did. That night in the Department of Mysteries, everyone was dead for a little while.
In sixth year, the entire vision changed. The very core of this future, the central family was the most obvious path time could take, that Ron and Hermione would stop bickering like a married couple and start bickering as a married couple, was broken. It was obvious to me, and Seamus said it was to him and Dean too, after Ron and Hermione had a particularly geriatric fight, that they would get married. But that was not to be, or at least, it didn't seem that way when we were in our sixth year. At the moment they blushingly made their announcement in late June, I had an absurd image of Harry and Ron living together in the cottage from every other future, except it was pink and purple, and the two of them spoke with lisps and said "oh my god" every five seconds.
Horribly stereotypical of me.
Then, this image was replaced by a particularly morbid end of the year future, the cottage was a dark and horrid place, nothing alive anywhere, only the Dark Mark hovering over it, my year-mates dead inside it, though you couldn't see them through the windows. But, as I heard of how the Trio escaped from the Death Eaters, the vision was momentarily replaced with my first year one, but I shook it off. The future was different now. Over the summer going into seventh year, I abandoned the vision. I didn't know what anything was going to turn out as, and that scared me, I had always had that vision to give me....hope? I wasn't mad and Harry and Ron, I didn't blame them, but it's just easier for the rest of us if they're perfect, making a perfect world.
God, I'm digging my grave here, so I think I have to say that Harry and Ron being together does not bother me at all. The vision, any vision, was absent for most of seventh year, until Christmas Day, 1997 when I found Harry and Ron kissing as they cried in the empty common room. I scurried back up to the dorm, sure they hadn't seen me. In that instant, seeing them scared and in love, emotion pouring from them in waves, I saw the gods die, replaced by mere human beings.
Strange to say, I suppose. I guess before they were like gods or something. Heroes. Everyone needs heroes don't they? But no, heroes are for children, and it was better to have the real future than the ideal. Seventh year, I had the Vision, and it held through Graduation, when the Dark Lord himself...itself burst in during the ceremony and dueled Harry on the spot, after his Death eaters fell.
Harry survived, of course, because he was Harry Potter. I had my doubts, if You-Know-Who cast a particularly nasty spell, the Vision was a vision of a smoldering ruin where corpses lived. I thought absurdly of my insufferable Vision as one of my friends was about to die...how selfish of me. The Vision twisted and burned and the white picket fence was torn away, one picket at a time, as the Dar-oh all right, as Voldemort, aimed his wand at a spread- eagled Harry. Harry was about to die and all I could think of was how I would get on, not being able to guess what the future held.
I'm such a bastard.
However, Harry did not die that day, he survived the Killing Curse a second time, and this time had the strength to kill Voldemort for real. Another great mystery, but that was hardly on anyone's mind as Ron ran up to Harry and kissed him full on the lips, revealing their secret to the non- Gryffindor Seventh Year world.
The entire Hogwarts faculty, all the students, and all the parents gasped, or cheered, or cried as the Most Emotional Kiss in the History of the World took place after the Greatest Duel in the History of the World.
The next morning, as we prepared to leave Hogwarts, I told Harry about my visions, and my post-Graduation Vision, with Ron listening vaguely as he packed. I felt they both had the right to know what I had thought of them from first year until today. When I finished, Harry cried a little, he said it was a wonderful Vision, but I forgot one thing. I asked him what. He pointed to me and said, Neville, you're our friend too, you're real too.
It was a horribly kind thing to say, and I cried a little too. You don't have to let us make your visions, Neville, said Ron, who was whispering, because a full voice would waver with emotion. You're part of it all. You're here. You can do more than hope.
In that moment, everything that everyone said meant so much less. I didn't feel like I was depending on others to make the visions, to make the future. It was my moment of epiphany. I sniffled and thanked them, and sauntered away anti-climactically
Later, as I sat in the Hogwarts Express, I thought of The Vision, the new version of the Vision with me in it. It starts out focused on the same cottage, same field of sight as the visions, the Vision, but now it was The Vision.
A newsboy flies by on his broom, tossing a copy of the Daily Prophet onto the sidewalk. A few minutes pass. Then, Ron (an adult of course, late twenties/early thirties-ish) walks out in a royal blue bathrobe to retrieve the paper. He yawns as he pulls up, clutching it in his hand. Harry Potter, eyes uncovered by glass and wire, opens the very same front door silently, Ron doesn't notice a thing. Harry sneaks up behind his friend and lover, and clamps his hands over his eyes. Ron grins as Harry utters the quintessential covering-someone's-eyes phrase. Ron says Snape and Harry giggles, a boyish habit he never grew out of. Then Ron will turn around and say, Aha! and jab his finger at Harry accusingly. Harry will gasp and Ron will take this opportunity to kiss him. They will grin slyly and go back inside, hand in hand in newspaper. The door shuts.
On the left, Hermione Krum will emerge, fetching her own paper. Viktor's head appears in their second-storey bedroom window, and he will say something sleepily in Bulgarian. Hermione will laugh and say something back, he chuckles at such wit. Crookshanks slinks out of the cat door and a toddler's hand reaches out to grab his tail. Hermione will stifle a cry, she's only 2 and a half, it's a dangerous world! She goes back inside and is scolding the child, her bossy yet affectionate voice resounds throughout the street, waking up Mrs. Ginny Longbottom, of the house on the right, who tells her round-faced husband to wake up, (I always slept like the dead) and that she doesn't cook breakfast. Neville sighs and you can hear them trundling down the stairs, waking a set of twins, a girl and a boy, named Freida and Balder. The children chatter excitedly, and I make some attempt to talk to them, but Ginny wants the breakfast that is typical of her third trimester, cabbage and chocolate frogs. Fried.
Meanwhile, Ronald Weasley, in the same Ministry robes he's worn in every future, Disapparates, not before giving a peck on Professor Potter's cheek, who must walk to Hogwarts, the wards are as strong as ever.
Viktor prefers flying, not surprisingly, and takes his small daughter with him; he will drop her off on his way to the Quidditch store in Diagon Alley. Hermione uses Floo powder; it is risky to Apparate into the crowded Muggle relations section on the Ministry, though Ron does it anyway. She'd have to scold him at work. The Longbottoms work and school here in Hogsmeade, they walk downtown every morning. My wife tells Seamus to wake up; there is the slamming of a door as the Thomas-Patils come out of their house, with similar concerns to the bedridden Irishman. He's always late when Lavender gets a call at St. Mungo's in the middle of the night. Dean and Parvati "pop" away, and my family and I walk along.
Around midday, Lavender comes home, and we can only hear it, she yells at Seamus, and he Disapparates very quickly, running from her as fast as possible, he didn't even tie up his shoes yet, Mr. Eeylops of the Owl Emporium will later tell him.
Hermione is back just as the Ra is slain for the millionth time, staining the sky red. Viktor and young Jagoda touch down as she opens the door to go inside, Viktor gives Hermione a kiss of the cheek and Crookshanks purrs insistently, he pats him on the head.
Ronald Arthur Weasley of 17 Prospero Court, Hogsmeade, Apparates onto his front lawn quite disheveled, his red hair standing up nearly on end, and one has to stifle the instinct to attempt and put it out. He would probably find this immensely funny, but you'll find yourself sans two front teeth if you make any other flaming jokes, especially if Harry is present. Which isn't a problem, because Harry is not present, he is late again, probably have a rough time letting Headmaster Snape (Dumbledore passed years ago) allow several of his students just up and go to Hogsmeade for a barbeque of all things. Young Solon Malfoy excluded, he's a Slytherin and has a get-out- of-Hogwarts-free card. In any case, Harry was late. And Ron couldn't Muggle cook for his life.
It's lucky, then, that Ginny Longbottom comes home from work early, saying she felt sick because of the baby, but all she really wanted was some cauliflower and grape juice. She has to stifle a laugh as her youngest older brother pulls a Seamus and scorches his eyebrow trying to get the grille coals lit. Like Arthur, ickle Ronniekins matches his enthusiasm only with his ineptitude. Ginny successfully sets up the grille just as Neville and the children come skipping down the street, chanting the rhyme that is all Neville recalls of his pre-insane-parents childhood. Or rather, infanthood. Neville gives Ginny a peck on the cheek as she turns the grille over, Ron has put it on upside-down. Neville and Ron discuss the Ministry's need for a head-ectomy from the proverbial arse, and the young Longbottoms chatter to Ron, who loves kids. Which is lucky, because he is a Weasley, and he expects a score or so nieces and nephews all told. As Ginny marinates the steak, Professor Potter Apparates next to Ron, only to be attacked by Virginia's brood. Several witchlights fill the air, signaling Hermione's entrance and level- headedness, it's getting dark. Jagoda, Balder and Freida clap as Neville makes one turn into a dog, which Crookshanks hisses at. Food is served as the slew of Weasleys and friends arrive, Apparating, portkeying, or just crossing the way. True to Ron's prediction, at this rate of production the dozen or so nieces, nephews and neighborhood kids will be stacked on top of each other to conserve space.
Draco and Seamus converse in civilized tones, and Draco actually cracks a smile when Finnegan does a comical exaggeration of Mr. Eeylops. Pansy is swapping recipes with Angelina Johnson-Weasley, who absolutely loves your spongecake, Pansy, wherever did you get the recipe?
Solon Malfoy and Balder, best mates since the womb are scaring the younger girls with tales of the Green Man, and Dhisana Patil-Thomas almost cries until George and Katie's second daughter, Rebecca promptly tells them they're full of sodding shit. George grimaces as he smiles, and asks her where she heard that from. She points to him, and Molly, Katie, and Ginny (whose mood is swinging as a wife-trading party) all smack him upside the head. Fred grimaces in pain at seeing hisotherself being assaulted, but Penelope tactfully breaks the tension, serving up the desert.
God Pansy, how do you do it?
As the group of parents, children, siblings, friends, and lovers munches away on sweet pastries and candies, the Weasley twins fire off the biggest damned rocket in the history of the universe, no exaggeration. It is super- double-what-the-hell-was-that at least, exploding into a variety of magical creature-shaped clouds of magic and burning matter. The creatures fly around to everyone's enjoyment, and a mischievous grin plays across identical faces as they watch their firework beasts spell out 'Harry and Ron have something to tell you".
Blushing as Weasley-y as is Weasley possible, Ron pulls Harry close and holds out a pair of (damn manly) gold wedding bands. Before Harry can finish the word "married", he and Ron are buried under a pile of close friends trying to hug and kiss and congratulate them. Arthur mutters that they finally got to their senses, but does not share these sentiments, tactful old man.
After that, the night, thankfully, mercifully, winds down. Percy looks flustered, he was always expecting that Harry and Ron would cry out that it was a trick and that they were straight as arrows all along and ha-ha wasn't that a good one?
He congratulates them all the same, though he stalls on that for a while after Dean gives a rare show of emotion and hugs both Ron and Harry at once, teary eyed.
As Zeke Clearwater-Weasley begins to snore, the unspoken word among the adults is good night, it was a great time Ron, Harry. The sounds of Portkeys, Disapparition, and footfalls are especially loud in the suddenly still night. Harry and Ron are alone in their yard as the moon hits its zenith, crescent light giving Prospero Court an eerie, if not romantic glow. The host couple has lain down on the stars, lying on top of itself. Harry and Ron's hair mixes, a Halloween collage of color, or, in Harry's case, non-color. They sit in silence as the lights of the houses all go out, Hermione's bedroom is last, she's probably keeping Viktor up with the impossibly bright light she uses for reading. Snuggled up against his
FIANCE!
, Harry whispers.
"Hey Ron." "Yeah, mate?" "Would you change it all?" "What all, Har?" "The past I guess." Silence and consideration. Then... "Maybe, but not if it changed a certain thing." "What's that?" "Going to sleep like this"
But Ron doesn't have to worry about not sleeping with Harry on their lawn, because that's what it's like in my The Vision. I guess I have some Seer blood in me, because that final Vision that Harry and Ron helped me make as we left Hogwarts was true to the letter. Despite the millions of ways I saw it go, the future turned out like this, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
Fin
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I think I like this story, but you know
I had to get in some domestic fluff and throw in some philosophical crap
(courtesy Neville)
Oh and by the way
Everyone who doesn't live in my line of sight Disapparates in a
cacophony* of pops, children with portkeys again, "good-byes" and "see-
you-laters" still echoing on the street.
*this is my favorite word in the entire English language, for reasons
entirely unknown.
So review please I guess, be they flames, questions, or even a positive
little note
-HFS