In the Closed Ward

Chapter 2 – July 30th, 1992

Even though it was only her first day, Josey liked being a second year trainee. All the crap that came with being at the bottom of the shitheap was now somebody else's problem, yet she wasn't given too much responsibility yet. It was like a little semi-vacation before the real work started as a third year. Not to mention the fact that all the male trainees were head-over-heels for her. That felt good too.

Josey had totally forgotten her meeting with the shy and troubled Neville Longbottom on her first day, so she couldn't explain what drew her to the Closed Ward time and time again as July drew to a close. Usually she excused her behavior by blaming it on morbid curiosity, like watching a splinching, and left it at that. When she entered the ward on July 30th, though, she found a boy of about twelve, slightly chubby and standing stoically between two beds, and the memories of the entire event were suddenly flooding her mind.

Part of her was mortified at remembering exactly how much of a mess she'd been back then, but elation surged through her warmly, swallowing up the mortification into non-existence. How, she wondered, did I forget as boy as sweet and mature as Neville?

Shrugging this question off easily, excusing herself with stress and the sheer number of patients she'd seen since, Josey started off a canter across the room. "Neville!" she exclaimed as she got closer, throwing her arms open wide.

The boy's head shot up, his expression full of surprise, but it quickly became one of happiness when he saw who was calling his name. The boy began to speak, smiling widely, but before he could get a single word out he was pulled into a vise-grip of a hug. When he was released the smile seemed only to have grown, and had been joined by an embarrassed flush that would put Ron Weasley to shame. "Josey," he finally got to return her greeting, obviously amused by the older witch's behavior.

Josey dragged him over to the chairs across the room without a word and beckoned for him to sit down. Still grinning, Neville did so. As soon as they were settled, Josey asked, "So, how was Hogwarts? What house did you end up in?"

Mixed emotions traipsed across Neville's face at the rapid questions, but he finally settled into a proud grin and said, "I made it into Gryffindor!"

Josey's eyes widened in shock at the news, for she had truly expected him to be sorted into Hufflepuff, but she hid her reaction quickly and exclaimed, "That's wonderful! Congratulations, really, I'm sure your parents would've been proud!"

The exuberant grin alight upon Neville's face faltered and was replaced by a sadder, wistful one. Josey instantly regretted what she said, mentally chastising her tactlessness. She opened her mouth to apologize, but suddenly remembered that he didn't like that, so she snapped it closed. He did not notice her floundering, because he was gazing across the room at his immobilized parents. What a thing to say, Josey, you twit! She thought fiercely, feeling terrible. "Oh, you got into your parents' old house? That's great! Too bad they're practically dead and don't know who you are!"

Josey continued to mentally berate herself harshly, but was soon pulled out of her internalized smear campaign by Neville, who said, "I think they are proud."

"W-what?" asked Josey, confused.

"I think they're in there, at least a little, that they can hear us, and I think they know who I am," responded Neville, hopefully.

Josey's heart went out to the boy as he voiced the futile opinion of almost every family member of almost every vegetative patient, and she placed her hand on top of his saying, "Sweetie, I know how easy it is to think that. A lot of people do, but there's just no evidence to support it, and all it does is unnecessarily raise hopes. Even when a person does get better from a curse induced coma, they never say they remember being aware."

Surprisingly, Neville was nodding along in agreement. "I know, I know. I've been reading all I can on comas, especially Cruciatus-induced ones. I was convinced for the longest time that I was just letting my wishes get the best of me, but I think my parents' case is different."

Josey couldn't help but cynically think, Everyone wants to think their insert relation 's case is different, Neville. Still, she didn't voice these thoughts, not wanting to upset Neville again.

"The first time I was here, before you came in, I spent hours with my parents. I told them all about my life up till that point, all about how Gran was doing, basically everything and anything I could think of, and I spent just as much time just sitting with them in silence, holding their hands. And I do that every time I visit. A couple of weeks ago I came here and I had my hands on my mm's bed, but wasn't holding it yet." Neville took a breath and looked at Josey meaningfully, "Josey, she grabbed my hand then, completely without help."

Josey sat in total silence, stunned by what Neville had just said. Or, a smug part of her mind that hated when she was cynical said, maybe your case could really be different.

"Are…are you sure?" she asked stupidly, wondering how someone could knock her off-kilter so often.

Neville nodded and said, "Positive. I tried it out a few more times and it always eventually happened."

"That's…amazing," breathed Josey. "Have you told anybody else about this?"

"Nope," answered Neville, blushing fore some reason, "Just you. I wanted to wait awhile and make sure that this isn't just some fluke or strange phase."

Josey smiled and said, "Alright, then it's out little secret."

They sat in silence for a moment, but then Neville asked, "So, how have you been?"

Josey shrugged and said, "It's getting better. Everyone dumps all the work that they don't want to do, like draining pus from bites, onto you when you're a first year, so that's always terrible. But you do learn a lot, so that's always good. Now that I'm a second year, though, it's much better." Josey grinned deviously at Neville and gleefully said, "There are first years below me now that I can dump everything on!"

Neville laughed along with her and said, "Sounds like fun."

"Oh it is," replied Josey. "How about you? How was Hogwarts?"

Neville visibly blanched at the question and asked mournfully, "You remember your first day?"
"It was mostly like that, except everyone was justified in thinking that I'm a failure," Neville said, sounding ashamed.

"C'mon," said Josey, trying to cheer him up, "I couldn't've been that bad."

"I melted twenty cauldrons," exclaimed Neville as if that explained everything.

Josey shrugged, trying to cheer her companion up. "So Potions isn't your thing."

"Or flying, transfiguration, Defense, or charms," Neville said, each item causing Josey to wince. "It's like I said before, I hardly have any magic. Everyone thinks that I'm almost a squib. The only thing I'm good at is Herbology."

Josey suddenly brightened and exclaimed, "Well, there you go!" Seeing Neville's confused look, Josey leaned forward and said, "Look, they don't tell you this at school, but you don't need to be great at everything to succeed in life. Unless you want to do something really hard, like being an Auror –"

"Or a healer," broke in Neville, causing Josey to blush slightly.

"Or a healer," she conceded before continuing, "Unless you want to do something like that all you need is one thing, and it looks like yours might be Herbology. If you become a Master in it you could work in a research or teaching capacity almost anywhere in the world."

"Really?" asked Neville hesitantly.

"Really," said Josey, with an air of finality. Neville smiled at her, thanking her for her support. Josey squeezed his hand and exclaimed, "Alright! Enough of this, tell me about the good parts of your year! Tell me about your friends!"

Neville chuckled at Josey's enthusiasm and said, "Well, I didn't really make any close friends, more like a lot of semi-close ones. There were five boys in my year, and I was kind of the odd one out."

"Like who?" prompted Josey. "Tell me about them."

"Well, the first person I met was this amazingly nice, but amazingly bossy girl named Hermione, and she helped me find my toad when I lost him. We were kind of close for the first couple of months we were there, no one else liked her, but then Harry and Ron, two of my dorm mates, saved her from a rampaging troll and they became inseparable."

Neville had the uncanny ability of saying the extremely odd as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Josey figured that she would eventually get used to it, but as of now it still caught her off guard. "Wait…rampaging troll?"

Neville grinned, obviously enjoying her confusion, and answered, "Yeah. One of our teachers let it in, don't ask, and it cornered Hermione in the bathroom. Harry and Ron actually locked it in there, but then they remembered that Hermione was in there and they went in and knocked it out with its own club!"

"Two eleven year olds did this?" asked Josey skeptically.

Neville nodded and said, "Yeah. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter."

Josey's eyes went wide as silver dollars as she exclaimed, "The Harry Potter!"

"Wha…?" asked Neville, confused.

Then, realizing why she was reacting the way she was, Neville burst out laughing, saying, "Oh, that! Ha ha, yeah, he's the Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. I've been around him for so long that I forgot how most people react."

"What's he like?" demanded Josey, beginning to feel foolish under Neville's humor-filled gaze.

"He's completely normal. He grew up with muggles, and didn't even know magic existed until Hagrid came and picked him up. So he had no idea how famous he was. It actually makes him pretty uncomfortable."

"So he has the scar and everything? You've seen it?"

"Of course I've seen it," said Neville. "I lived with the guy for a year."

Josey chuckled a little, really feeling foolish now, and said sheepishly, "Good point."

Josey absently rubbed her thumb across her bottom lip, a habit she'd picked up in the past year that she did whenever she was curious. She felt like a fool, fawning over a celebrity like this, but she couldn't help being inquisitive. Finally, she broke down and asked another question, "So, he's just normal?"

Neville shrugged and said, "Well, he's not stuck-up or arrogant or anything like that, but he's not just another normal wizard either. I mean, he got onto the Quidditch team this year, and we would've won the Quidditch cup because of him, but he was unconscious for the last game after beating You-Know-Who again."

"What!" exclaimed Josey, eyes wide and mouth agape. She tried to ask more, but found that the words stuck in her through, which was bone-dry from horror. Josey had only been seven when You-Know-Who had been defeated, but she still remembered enough from those dark years to make her blood turn to ice at the idea of having the dark wizard back. Swallowing hard, she tried to speak again and found that she could…barely. "W-what? How?" she whispered hoarsely.

Neville nodded solemnly, casting a glance to where his parents lay. "He was possessing one of our professors, Professor Quirrel."

"Quirrel?" asked Josey, shocked. How could Professor Quirrel, the timid, sweet man who had comforted her when her Grandfather ad died, possibly have anything to do with You-Know-Who?

But Neville was nodding again, and he began to recount the entire story, as Harry Potter himself had told it to him. He told of Harry's visit to Gringotts to get what he later found out was the Sorcerer's Stone, of their encounter with Fluffy, of Harry's adventure with Norbert, of Harry's discovery in the Forbidden Forest, and, finally, the tale of Harry, Ron, and Hermione's adventures in getting the Stone.

"So," said Josey with a smirk, after Neville had finished his story and her shock had finally worn off, "you tried to stop Harry Potter from defeating You-Know-Who?"

"I didn't know they were trying to stop him," exclaimed Neville defensively. "And neither did they, not really."

"I'm just kidding, Neville!" laughed Josey reassuringly. "I actually think what you did was really brave."

Neville smiled slightly, blushing, and said, "Well…so did Headmaster Dumbledore."
"Really?" asked Josey with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah," said Neville, obviously pleased with himself. "Gryffindor was in last place for House Cup, but Dumbledore added some last minute points because of what Harry and Ron and Hermione did. He gave fifty points each to Ron and Hermione, and then sixty to Harry, which tied us with Slytherin." Neville paused in his story, drawing himself up proudly, and then finished, "Then Dumbledore said, 'It takes a lot of courage to stand up to your enemies, but it takes just as much to stand up to your friends' and he gave me ten points and we won the Cup!"

"Neville, that's wonderful," exclaimed Josey, wrapping him into a congratulatory embrace.

His grin was happier than Josey had ever seen, and she felt her spirits lift at the sight of it. It felt good to see him so happy. Not content, not rueful, not wry, but happy, proud of himself.

"Thanks, Josey." Neville said, flushed with happiness and still grinning as wide as he could.
"No problem," returned Josey. She opened her mouth to say more, but at that moment she caught a glimpse of the wall clock over Neville's shoulder and let out a gasp of surprise. "Oh, shi…shoot!" she exclaimed, jumping up from her chair. "Neville, I'm sorry, but I've got to go! I was supposed to be back with my attending Healer fifteen minutes ago! He's going to kill me!"

"Then stop explaining and go!" said Neville, laughing at her hysteria. Josey cast one last apologetic look in his direction and then rushed out of the ward at breakneck speeds.

Oh shit, oh shit! He is going to fucking eat me alive! Her mind screamed over and over as she ran.

To Be Continued…