The Mahogany Box
This is just a little OotP 'missing scene' I first had the idea fornot long afterI read OotP for the first time, back in 2003. Sadly, the last year has been very frantic for me, so it never saw the light of day. When I found my old ficdisc recently, I decided that I wanted to get it done before HBP if at all possible, and it seems that it was. It all branches off from a moment in St Mungo's, when Neville is given a sweet wrapper by his parents, which he is careful to take with him. I hope you enjoy it.
From the outside, there was nothing immediately eye-catching about number 27, Lancaster Place. It was just like any other small, suburban house on the outskirts of London, in the midst of an estate full of them. At the front of the house was a tiny lawn, split neatly in two by a narrow path of concrete paving stones, with the whole of the garden surrounded by a relentlessly tidy hedge. The wooden window frames were a bright, brilliant white, and the door looked as if it's green paint was freshly painted, with a brass doorknocker in the middle that gleamed in the afternoon sun. It was the sort of house where mess and disorder were clearly not tolerated, but not to the extent that it detracted from the obvious warmth and comfort of the place.
If anyone were to look in at the front window, they would still see what looked like the front room of any ordinary, regular house. A little old-fashioned perhaps, but nothing unusual. In the centre of the room there was a highly polished coffee table, with an elaborate piece of crocheting protecting the gleaming wood. All around it were a well-worn set of chairs and a sofa, made of soft floral-patterned cushions over the top of a thick, wooden frame. On the floor there was a plain but very well-kept carpet in a dark, chocolaty brown, and in the corner you could just make out what looked like an antique wireless radio, sitting in the spot where most families would have placed their television set.
The first sign of anything abnormal would be when a fire suddenly appeared in the fireplace, where there was no fire before. Not particularly unusual, in these days of gas fires and automatic timers, until you noticed that the fire was a bright, unnatural green colour, rather than the glowing reds and yellows that fires tend to favour. To start with, the fireplace looked like it was a cage for a group of living, flowing emeralds, dancing an inhuman dance to an inaudible tune, while filling the room with an eerie green glow. But once the flames died down a little, and the glow subsided, it looked less and less unnatural, and more like a trick of the light inside the funny old house.
But that was when the laws of reality would seem to fly completely out the window, as a young boy was suddenly flung from the glowing fire, soot staining his clothes, but otherwise completely unscathed by the mysterious flames. As he started to climb unsteadily to his feet, an elderly woman wearing a hat topped with what seemed like a stuffed bird struggled out of the fire, lifting herself out of the fireplace with some difficulty. She immediately went over to the boy, and helped him off the ground, before dusting some of the soot from his clothes with deliberate care. The boy had short-cropped brown hair, and was wearing what looked like some kind of thick cloak, over the top of a more normal-looking knitted jumper and trousers.
Neville Longbottom pulled away from his grandmother's insistent cleaning, just before she reached for the clothes brush that sat on the mantelpiece over the fire, which had now returned to a more normal orange colour. The bristles of that brush were hard and uncomfortable, and he made a point of avoiding it wherever it was possible. Unfortunately, Mrs Longbottom was very quick for her age, and she was successful in catching hold of Neville by the arm as he tried to make his escape, and started to give his black robes a good going over with the wooden brush. For the next few minutes, Neville stood still, feeling somewhat dazed as his grandmother kept running the sharp bristles over his clothes, feeling like they were prickling him with every stroke.
As soon as the ritual brushing was over, Neville ran out of the room, without a word to his grandmother, who watched after him sadly. Nearly every time they returned from St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, his reaction was the same - a retreat to the safe haven of his bedroom, as fast and as quietly as possible. Fortunately, she knew there was no reason to worry for his well-being, even though his actions might seem a little strange to someone who didn't know Neville well. She had long since learnt exactly what it was Neville did whenever he ran off like this, and she had also learnt the best way of dealing with it, which was to leave the boy alone, and not interfere. There were some things in life that people had to deal with in their own ways, and in their own time.
With a thoughtful look on her face, she sat down in her favourite armchair, and turned on the Wizarding Wireless, hoping to hear news of the world outside. Unfortunately, the news was predictably unforthcoming, as it had been for several months now, and the broadcast soon changed to some gentle, relaxing teatime music. The Wireless had never sunk to the same depths of ridiculousness that the Daily Prophet had plunged to, but the news it gave was becoming less and less useful. Sighing, she reached into the bowl of Mint Imps that always sat beside her chair, and popped one into her mouth. It would almost certainly be quite some time before Neville came back downstairs, so it would be best for her to get comfortable, and enjoy the music while she waited.
Meanwhile, Neville had bolted up the staircase, down the tiny corridor and into his own bedroom, at the back of the house. The room was quite large, with one wall taken up with a wardrobe and bookshelves, both of which were in a state of near-total disarray. Another wall was covered by a desk, which had piles of used parchment covering it up, along with a large, unstable pile of books and any number of discarded quills. An over-used waste basket was next to it, filled with even more crumpled, discarded pieces of paper; Professor Snape's Potions Homework was not going well, and neither was the difficult essay that Professor Umbridge had assigned over the holidays. But for the moment, homework and school was one of the furthest things from Neville's mind.
The middle of the room was taken up with a large, comfortable-looking bed, which divided the open space of the worn blue carpet into two. The sheets on the bed were very similar in style to the ones he slept on at Hogwarts, except that these ones were a pale yellow, rather than the bold Gryffindor red of those magnificent four-posters. Most of the floor space in the room was next to the door, where Neville would often sprawl out and read, or lie there and tend his small collection of plants. But on the other side of the room, between the bed and the window, there was another small strip of space, just enough for a small person to sit between the bed and the wall, and be almost hidden from anyone coming through the door.
Neville dropped gently to the floor, and sat on the carpet, with his back to the bed and his legs pressed against the wall in front of him. His breathing was slightly heavy, and was starting to come in gasps, rather than the usual, steady breaths that he was used to. Tears were starting to form in the corners of his eyes, burning in their need to be released and allowed to fall, in much the same way as they did after most of his visits to St Mungo's. No matter how many times he went to visit his parents, it never became any easier seeing them reduced to the state they were in. For what seemed like hours, he sat there, blinking back tears that he wasn't sure he wanted to stop, and trying to keep quiet enough that his grandmother wouldn't notice the sound.
Eventually, he recovered himself enough to get his breathing back to normal, and stop the tears from welling up behind his eyes. With one last sniffle, he raked his still-robed arm across his eyes, wiping away any remaining moisture that was there, but still leaving the telltale red marks that showed what he had been doing. Once that was done, he took a deep breath and flattened himself against the floor, carefully reaching under the bed. With the ease of an action often repeated, he soon found what he was looking for, in a small hiding place against the wall, and clutched his hand around it tightly. He started to pull the object out from under the bed into the light, revealing it for what it was - a small, wooden box, made of polished mahogany, with tiny brass hinges.
Slowly, gingerly, he opened the box, treating it like it contained something that was terrible and frightening, but at the same time, wonderful and precious. His hands shook slightly, as the lid opened to reveal a small collection of things, placed carefully inside the tiny box. Inside the box was a small collection of what seemed to be random, and mostly quite useless, objects, which had been put into their storage carefully, but without any particular order, as if each one was as precious as the last, regardless of size or worth. On the top of the pile was what looked like a tightly-wrapped length of surgical bandages, but the corners of a couple of other small items were visible around the sides of the box, showing that there was a selection of treasures in there, and not just that one thing.
The contents of the box were completely free of dust; the Dust-Repelling Charm Neville had put on it had held, despite all the years that had passed since the charm was first cast. It was the first piece of charm work Neville had ever attempted, and it had proven to be one of his best efforts, far better than the work practiced in his classes at Hogwarts. The charm had held up despite the box being fingered and handled a hundred thousand times, and ever since it had been cast, everything inside had been preserved from dust by magic, and from damage by Neville's own scrupulous care and attention. The results of the charm were something Neville was extremely proud of, and he felt a surge of pride every time he found it still intact.
As he looked at the spotlessly clean box, Neville remembered the day he had cast the charm, only a few days before he had first ridden the Hogwarts Express, when he was barely eleven years old. Just over a week before the end of August, his grandmother had taken him to Diagon Alley for his school supplies, and his Great-Uncle Algie had insisted on going with them, so that he could buy his nephew a present to celebrate going to Hogwarts. Algie had once doubted that his nephew would be able to attend the school at all, and had felt somewhat guilty since accidentally dropping Neville out of a first-floor window, while testing him for magical talent. But now that Neville was on his way to Hogwarts at last, Algie seemed intent on making amends for doubting him, and putting him at risk.
Once the essential supplies of textbooks, robes and a cauldron had been bought from their respective shops, Neville's grandmother told him that he and Algie could now go and find a gift that Neville would like. Immediately, Neville led the three of them straight back to Flourish & Blotts, and started looking through the books there. Both Algie and Neville's grandmother were flabbergasted at first, having expected him to go straight for Quality Quidditch Supplies like most young wizards would, but with a shared glance, they contentedly followed Neville into the shop. Eventually, Neville chose three books in particular, which Algie was happy to buy for him. One was a detailed book on Herbology, which gave descriptions, pictures and uses for every herb and plant, and another was a book on the history of the Dark Arts; who had been involved, and how they had been defeated.
The third, however, was a book of common household charms and spells, which was inoffensive enough to look both useful and harmless, but it did seem very strange compared to the other two. Like his father before him, Neville had always harboured a passion for Herbology, so that book seemed quite normal. Even the book on the Dark Arts was unsurprising, as given the boy's history, it was hardly surprising that he would have some interest in the machinations of those that followed them. But with all the books and other things that Neville could have asked for, this book didn't seem particularly special, even though it was undoubtedly a useful thing to own. Still, Algie handed over the fourteen Galleons and seven Sickles to pay for the three books, and was quite content to do so.
That very evening, once the family had returned home, and Algie was occupied talking to Mrs Longbottom downstairs, Neville took his books upstairs, and immediately started going through the book on charms, looking for one charm in particular. It wasn't long before he found it; domestic spells like the Dust-Repelling Charm were always popular, and usually easy to find in any well-organised book. There were at least a dozen charms that he wanted to learn, and that this book would give him access to, but this particular one was the one was had needed to find out about the most desperately, and had coveted the longest. Even though he had taken every care imaginable to protect his treasures from dust and damage, the thought of the contents of this box being covered in grime caused Neville a great deal of concern, and he hoped this book would help him to alleviate some of that feeling.
Reaching for his father's wand, which had been in his possession since he was six, he traced the movement of the wand through the charm, just as it showed in the book in front of him. It was a simple enough movement, described as a 'twist and flick' movement in the opening chapter of the book, and from the quick glimpse of the book he had taken so far, it seemed to be a staple of several other charms as well as this one. It took almost twenty minutes before he felt content that the wand movement was close enough to what the spell required, and even then he felt less than certain that he had got it completely right. Next, he put the wand down, and started to recite the charm to himself, under his breath so that he would not be heard. For another ten minutes he sat there, whispering the word softly, taking care to enunciate every syllable of it clearly and carefully, until he was sure he would never forget how it was pronounced.
Once he was ready, he took the box out of its hiding place, in much the same way as he always had done. By this point, he had been collecting the little gifts his parents unwittingly gave him for several years, but the box was still well short of being full. He had bought the little box out of his own money, at a tiny Muggle bric-a-brac store just down the road from his grandmother's house, back when he was only around eight years old. His collection was still in its infancy back then, and wasn't much more than a pile of scrap paper and a couple of larger items. But even then, he was already hoping it would eventually be necessary to enlarge the inside of the box, as time helped the collection to grow, but for today it was more important to protect these few possessions, so that they would still be there when that time came.
One by one, he took the items out of the box, and arranged them neatly on his bed, where they would be safe. Neville was still unsure that he would even be able to make the charm work, especially as he was never confident that he would be able to do magic at all, until the letter arrived on the doormat a few short weeks ago. This way, his collection would be safe, even if the charm backfired in some way, and destroyed the box. It would be easy enough to find something else to store his treasures in, but the moments when he received them would never come again. It only took a few moments before they were all lined up on the bed; once the bandage had been taken out of the box, there had been a painfully small collection left to take out. When it was all out of the box, he looked carefully at the row of objects for a moment, and remembered the moments when he had been given them all.
Finally, he picked his wand up again, and practiced the motion a couple times more, making sure he was as ready as it was possible to be. He felt more nervous than he had ever felt before, and with good reason. After all, it was practically his first time even holding a wand correctly, let alone trying to perform magic, and he would have felt a lot better if someone had been there to steer him right in some way. He also had more than a little concern that he might somehow damage his father's wand, if he managed to miscast the charm. But the thought of asking someone for help never even entered his mind. Quite apart from wanting to keep his little selection a secret from everyone, this was something he just felt he had to do for himself, without any help or advice from anyone. Even if it meant his little box was destroyed in the process, he just had to try.
After taking another deep gulp of breath, Neville slowly, carefully began the required wand movement, and said the invocation for the charm – Incontaminus – in a clear voice, if not a particularly loud one. The effect was quite dazzling, as his wand erupted with what looked as much like a kind of pink, shining glitter as anything else, which danced over the surface of the box for a few moments, before eventually fading away into nothing. At first, the box seemed to be completely unchanged, but after staring at it for a couple more minutes, it seemed to shine a little brighter than before, like it had just been polished. Opening the box seemed to give the same impression; it seemed unchanged, except for being a little cleaner than before. It seemed that the spell hadn't done any damage, so Neville gently wiped some dust from his desk onto his hands, and tried to transfer it to the lid of the box.
Neville then checked the charm had worked by rubbing his dirty hand over the box, not once, but several times. Once he had been rubbing it for a few minutes, without managing to cause as much as a fingerprint, Neville had to catch himself to stop from whooping with joy. The charm had worked! For a moment, he just clutched the box to his chest, almost as if he was hugging a favourite teddy bear. Then, he flung himself onto the bed, and opened the box, to put his collection back in its home. Just as before, he took the items one by one, regarded them for a few seconds, and placed it back where it had come from. It would have been much easier to take a few of the smaller things at a time, but each one deserved to be respected and revered individually, so he took the time to give them all the attention they warranted. Finally, Neville put the last little trinket back, closed the lid, and bent over the side of the bed to return the box to where it had come from, his work completed.
Of course, his use of magic had not gone unnoticed. At almost the same moment Neville returned the box to its hiding-place, he heard his name being shrieked from downstairs, and he went down to find his grandmother sitting in her chair, holding a short, unpleasant letter from a Ministry Official, giving him an official warning for breaking the Decree against Underage Magic. A dark brown owl was standing atop the kitchen counter, clearly fresh from making the delivery, and it seemed to have been in quite a rush to get here; even now, it was trying to smooth his ruffled feathers back down. The verdict of the letter was damning – if Neville was caught using magic out of school again before he was of age, he would be expelled from Hogwarts immediately. But far worse than the letter was the sinking knowledge in Neville's stomach that, if he had only waited until after he had gone to Hogwarts, he could have used the spell without getting an official caution for it, and he would have escaped the lecture that he knew was coming.
For the next hour and a half, Neville stood in the middle of the room, trapped between the table and his grandmother's favourite armchair, listening to his guardian lecturing him about how stupid he had been, and how disappointed she was in him. Neville had to stay upright for the whole of the time his grandmother was talking, as he would not dare to take a seat without being asked while she was so angry, and she never told him to sit down, even though the chair was barely inches away from her. So, Neville stood still the entire time, while he absorbed the sermon without comment, not moving an inch, even when his legs started to ache from being held in the same position for too long. Throughout the whole lecture, he was like a rock, weathering the waves of his grandmother's disapproval for as long as it would take for them to pass over.
But for once, Neville couldn't find it in himself to be sorry for his mistake. Maybe it was the fact that Great-Uncle Algie was grinning uncontrollably throughout his grandmother's rant, clearly proud of his nephew's achievement. Maybe it was the inner glow of having achieved something all by himself, without being taught or told how to do it. Maybe it was just because he had finally been able to do something he had been planning to do this ever since the day he had first realised that he wasn't a Squib. All those thoughts occurred to Neville before the lecturing was over, and he could never be sure which of them was the best explanation. But for whatever reason, Neville knew, with absolute certainty, that if he were to somehow get a chance to go back in time and stop himself, he wouldn't even have to pause before turning it down.
Back in the present moment, Neville reached his hand into the box, and pulled out the first of the objects inside. It was a long, carefully folded strip of Magical Medi-tape, that looked as if it was at least several years old, with just the tiniest speck of blood on the side that was facing upwards. It was the largest of the objects in the box, which was why he always left it on the top of the pile, covering up everything that lay underneath it. He had been given this on a cold, winter afternoon, when he was just seven years old, and was still visiting the hospital every month with his grandmother. The weather outside had been bitterly cold, and they had both been forced to wear very thick, heavy winter cloaks, with strong heating charms on them.
As soon as he walked into the ward, his father leapt from his bed, screaming at the top of his voice, terrified of the sight in front of him. Neville, of course, screamed in shock, terrified at the way his father was acting, wondering what he possibly could have done to cause such a reaction. Later on, one of the Healers said that he most likely mistook his dark cloak for the cloak of a Death Eater, and it had triggered one of his more terrible memories. But thoughts like that were the last thing on Neville's mind as he saw his father leap out of bed, and grab the nearest thing to him, which happened to be a china plate, left over from when lunch had been served. Next thing Neville knew, he was on the floor among the shards of the former plate, dazed from where it had hit him hard on the head.
But just as soon as Frank Longbottom started casting around for something else to throw, he could feel his wife's soothing hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back onto his bed. Nobody knew why, but Alice Longbottom always seemed to be able to calm her husband down, even though they didn't recognise each other any more than they did their son. It only took Neville's mother a moment to get Frank to lie back and relax, and although Neville's ears were still ringing from the sharp blow to the head, he was certain he could hear some softly whispered words from mother to father, words like 'leave the poor boy alone', and 'can't you see he's terrified'. But as soon as the words started to make sense, they were gone, and a moment later, Neville could see his mother coming towards him, and drop to her knees next to him, helping him to sit up on the cold, tiled floor.
She didn't realise who he was, of course; neither she nor her husband ever did. She was just having one of her more lucid days, and was acting out of her own kindness for others. But Neville had never forgotten the way that his mother had come to his rescue, or the way she had snatched the reel of Medi-tape from the hands of the approaching nurse, and started wrapping his head carefully in the tape, bandaging the small cut the impact had caused. If the nurse had been the one to care for him, Neville would have waved her away, but he felt so peaceful under his mother's care, and he didn't want to do anything that might make her stop. She spent the rest of his visit talking soothingly to him, as they sat on her bed together, while the ache in his head receded to a much gentler one, helped by the magical properties of the tape.
Eventually, his mother turned away without a word, and lay down on the bed to sleep. It seemed like just an instant later that she was breathing the soft gasps of a sleeper, and all Neville wanted to go was turn onto his side, and lie down to sleep next to her. After a few minutes of careful manoeuvring, he managed to lie quite comfortably on the bed, facing her back, Unfortunately, one of the Medi-witches soon found him, and insisted that he went home; if his mother woke up with him so near to her, there was no telling what might happen. He was sorry to go home, but his heart felt lighter than it had for a long time. For one, brief afternoon, he felt the way a seven-year-old should feel around their mother; safe, protected and cared for.
As soon as he had got home that day, Neville had taken off the bandage, and hidden it carefully at the back of his sock drawer. By that time, the cut had already disappeared, thanks to the healing properties of the Medi-tape, so nobody thought any more about the bandage once it was removed. His grandmother knew that the bandage wouldn't be needed for very long, and Neville was careful not to mention it, in case she started to ask how he had disposed of the Medi-tape. That way, he would be able to keep his prize, without anybody else knowing about it. For the rest of the evening, Neville found himself pulling the bandage from the drawer at least once every hour, and sitting on his bed, just staring at it for several minutes.
Neville had gone back to the hospital the very next day, hoping against hope that his mother might remember him from the day before, even though she had never remembered any of his visits before. But his hopes were dashed as soon as he walked in the door, as she looked blankly at him, not even truly taking in his appearance, much less recognising him. Her eyes were open, but she didn't seem to have moved at all since he had been forced to leave her side the day before. Even the few words she managed to say weren't of any comfort, as they seemed to just be a random jumble of words, rather than anything coherent. Neville had come home early that afternoon, and cried himself to sleep with the bandage wrapped tightly around his hand, before he returned it to its hiding place the next morning.
The second item in the box was much smaller, but no less precious. This piece of the collection was a tiny, silver clasp, taken from the front of his father's hospital gown when Neville was still too young to have gone away to school. It was just over a year before Neville left to start at Hogwarts, when he went to the hospital to visit his parents for his 10th birthday. For some reason, the ward always seemed to be at its most full in the summer. There didn't really seem to be any connection between the heat and the number of people who were at St Mungo's, but for some reason whenever Neville remembered one of his birthday visits, the ward seemed to be packed with more people than was normal. However, it was something he only ever noticed in hindsight; whenever he was there, Neville's mind was on other things entirely.
On this particular birthday, Neville had been given mostly clothes, since nobody had wanted to get him magical items until his eleventh birthday. Most of the clothes he wore were brand new, and had just been collected from a fitting at Madam Malkins' that morning. Neville was wearing a set of robes that were smart, but not exactly formal either. They were more like school robes than anything, but instead of the formal black that school robes usually favoured, these were a deep, warm crimson. Underneath the robes he wore a new set of Muggle clothing, given to him by his grandmother - blue jeans, brown shoes and a white t-shirt, all of them fitted perfectly by some careful charmwork before they left the house. He also had a very long new scarf, which was made of wool and dyed the same shade as the robes were.
Even though it was July, and reasonably sunny, there was a bitter wind across London that day, so Neville was glad of his thick clothes and long scarf. When he arrived at the ward, his short hair was sticking out in every direction, and his face was red from being in the open air. His robes were still bright and new, but they had been pulled in every direction by the wind, and the scarf had been torn from Neville's shoulders more than once, as the wind tried to pull it away. By comparison, Neville's grandmother was relatively unscathed. She seemed to be all but immune to the wind, and she had arrived at the hospital's front desk in as immaculate a fashion as she had been when she left her home. Mrs Longbottom may be small and frail looking, but she was the type of woman who would not be cowed by the elements, and certainly not by a little wind.
Once the usual pleasantries had been exchanged at the desk, Neville and his grandmother had started climbing the stairs to the fifth floor, where Neville's parents were. Almost immediately, Neville started to fall behind, as the long scarf had come unwound, and was now trailing on the floor, tripping him up at every other step. He tried to tie it back, but every time he stopped to do something about it, his grandmother would call back and urge him on, waiting impatiently at the top of the staircase for him to catch up. So, Neville struggled with his scarf the whole way up to the fifth floor, tripping more than once and grazing his knees and elbows terribly. His grandmother didn't seem to notice his discomfort at all, but just kept on moving, in her own inexorable way.
By the time they managed to make it to his parents' ward, Neville was panting for breath, and red in the face, as well as in a small amount of pain. But he soon forgot that, as soon as he staggered into the ward behind his grandmother. Mrs Longbottom was sitting by the window, and seemed to be staring out onto the hospital grounds with a blank expression on her face. This was something she was known to do from time to time, and it was virtually useless to try talking to her when she was in this state; she would barely respond to anyone, and it when it happened, it was common for the staff to be forced to leave her in the chair overnight. It looked as if this birthday, Neville would be unable to even talk to his mother, which was a deep disappointment. Even though his parents had no idea who he was, Neville had always taken some comfort from the way he was able to spend time with them on each and every birthday, never missing a single one.
As soon as Neville saw her in that state, he tried to run across the room to her, dodging around his grandmother's back in his haste to get to her side. Unfortunately, he had barely made it halfway across the room before he was sent sprawling once again, flopping facedown on the tiled floor. Once again, it was his long scarf that had tripped him up, but he wasn't even thinking about the cause yet. The shock of being slammed to the floor again, combined with the disappointment of seeing his mother in one of her most unresponsive moods, was bringing hot, wet tears to his eyes, and for a moment he considered just lying there for a while, until they had stopped coming. Then, his grandmother caught up with him, and began hauling him to his feet. Neville's ears started to ring with her harsh admonishments, but he wasn't even paying the least bit of attention, his eyes still fixed on the window, wondering what it was his mother could see out there.
So, when his grandmother stopped telling him off and started to trying to distract Neville's attention, it took several minutes before she managed to pull his gaze away from his mother, and back to her. It seemed that all the way through his grandmother's complaining, Neville's father Frank had been gesturing towards him, trying to get his attention. Although Frank Longbottom had been through almost the same ordeal as his wife, it seemed to have affected the two of them in very different ways. While Alice's condition seemed to vary on an almost daily basis, from being reasonably lucid to today's almost catatonic state, her husband rarely showed any sign of change at all, and stayed in an almost fixed state of confusion, almost never making any sound more intelligible than a kind of soft grunting.
This was the kind of grunting his father was making now, while reaching his hand out to Neville, trying to get his son's attention. After a quick glance at his grandmother, Neville moved quickly to stand by the side of his father's bed, to see why his father was trying to get his attention. When dealing with his father, in some ways Neville had to be even more careful than with his mother, as Frank Longbottom's confused mood would quickly give way to a more violent one, where he would thrash about in his need to get away from other people, often hurting himself and others. The Healers at St Mungo's were more than capable of healing any damage such fits caused, of course, but they had far more important things to be doing with their time, so it often took a while before they could help. So, Neville had learnt to be very careful when dealing with his father, and try not to excite him.
But this time, his father's excitement didn't seem to be developing into a fit, or any other harmful display of passion. In fact, he was gesturing eagerly at Neville's scarf, in what looked like an enthusiastic manner. For a moment, Neville didn't realise what Mr Longbottom was pointing at, as the shock of being addressed directly had made him completely forget the interfering garment; such a gesture was extremely rare, and not easily forgotten. But as soon as he realised what his father had noticed, he produced the end of the scarf happily, glad that something had piqued his interest. Maybe it was the vibrant colour, or just the length that had got his attention, but Neville didn't particularly mind, as his father took the proffered length of scarf, and started to examine it closely.
After a couple of minutes, Frank stopped paying attention to the scarf, and began to fumble with his hospital robes, fiddling with the fastenings. The sudden change in interest wasn't entirely unexpected, as it was difficult to hold his attention in any one subject for long. But when Neville tried to turn away, he found that his father was still holding onto the end of his scarf, preventing him from walking away. Neville was in no rush to leave, so he waited patiently at his father's side; it wouldn't be long before his mood changed again, and Neville would find himself able to move again. Until then, he was content to wait right where he was. So, when Frank finished doing whatever it was he was doing, and pulled on Neville's arm to regain his attention, Neville was surprised for the second time in just a few short moments.
Frank had dropped the end of scarf that he was holding, and was now tugging at Neville's sleeve insistently with his left hand, while holding something in his right. Once he was satisfied that he had Neville's full attention, he reached out with the right hand, and offered a small, silver piece of metal – a clasp, taken from the front of his father's hospital robes. Even now, Neville could see the top of Frank's robes coming apart, something that he was sure his father would never have otherwise allowed – in every picture of his father he had seen, he was always immaculately dressed. But now, he was holding out the clasp, and suddenly, Neville understood; his father meant him to use the clasp to hold his scarf around his neck, rather than let it trail on the floor.
With shaking fingers, Neville picked up the scarf that his father had just dropped, and wrapped it around his neck warmly. Then, he took the clasp from his father, and used it to attach the trailing end of his scarf to his own robes, stopping it from slipping and falling to the floor again. He gave it an experimental tug to make sure the clasp held, and smiled as he saw that the little clasp held it in place tightly. His father was already looking elsewhere, his wandering attention already attracted by a passing Mediwitch, but Neville stayed sitting on his bed for a long time afterward, rubbing the tiny clasp in his fingers, right up until his grandmother came and told him that it was time for them to leave. After saying a quick, unacknowledged farewell to his mother, Neville walked out of the ward - without tripping over his scarf.
For weeks afterwards, Neville was never seen without his scarf, and nobody could understand why. Wherever he went – to the shops, to visit his relatives – he would always be seen with his scarf wrapped around his neck, no matter how hot it was, or how uncomfortable it looked. It took a heatwave at the start of September to persuade him to finally leave the scarf at home, and even then, for some reason the clasp was usually found attached to some part of his clothing. Eventually, Neville decided that it was time to add the useful little device in the box with the others, but not without finding another clasp of his own that he could use. And whenever there was a major family event – a wedding, or a funeral – Neville always made sure that he pulled it out again, and wore it with a secret rush of pride.
Next out of the box came a small, round seed pod, dark brown and rough with age, which Neville had been 'given' during one of his visits after his first year at school. It was one of a handful of them that had come from the plant next to his father's bed, but the only one that Neville had been able to preserve. The memory of his telling off from the previous year, and the official Ministry warning that had come with it, had prevented him from trying a Preserving Charm until he was safely on board the Hogwarts Express, and by then all but a couple of the pods had withered and crumbled. Although Neville wished he still had some more of the seeds, he was more than happy with the one that he had managed to save, and content to have kept anything that came from his father's treasured plant.
Apparently, one of the Medi-witches had brought the plant in one day, in an effort to stimulate Mr Longbottom. She had hoped that seeing the plant might spark some glimmer of interest deep inside Neville's father, and possibly even bring him closer to a recovery. It was well known that he had once been quite the horticulturalist, an enthusiasm that Neville was proud to share with his father. So, when a relative of hers managed to acquire some sample of this rare and fascinating plant, she arranged for one of the plants to be given to Mr Longbottom, as a therapeutic device. Unfortunately, the plant had none of the desired effect, but Frank took the gift to heart; he looked after the plant carefully, and it was rarely, if ever, seen out of his possession.
The first time Neville had seen the rare and fascinating plant, he had asked to see it for himself, wanting to share in his father's prize. But as soon as Neville reached out to take it from his father's hands, Frank started thrashing about, trying to leap out of the bed and keep the plant out of the hands of his son. When Neville realised the distress his actions were causing his father, he stopped and tried to pull away, not wanting to make things worse. He couldn't understand why his father was acting so violently over keeping a plant to himself, but he didn't want to cause any more difficulties than he already had. Unfortunately, it was already too late to avoid another frantic fit, and it wasn't long before Mr Longbottom was trying to wrench himself out of the bed, a task made all more difficult by Neville sitting on the bed sheets next to him, trying to calm him down.
In the brief, uncomfortable struggle that ensued, not only was Neville thrown to the floor, but also a number of the round, brown seed pods were torn from the plant, and came to rest on the ground. There were a number of them within reach, and scores more of them were crushed underfoot as the staff rushed around Neville, trying to calm his father down, as he was still screeching at the top of his voice. As soon as his wits returned, Neville also realised that he was covered with a foul-smelling green substance, along with most of the sheets and no small amount of the floor. But of far more importance to him were the little seeds, which were dotted across the floor, like they had been scattered on a tiled field. Before he got up, Neville hurriedly tried to grab as many of the seeds as he could, and stuffed them into his pockets.
Neville looked at his own Mimbulus Mimbletonia, which sat on the very top of his bookcase, protected from anything that might disturb it lower down. He only took it down to water and tend for it, which he did devoutly and with the utmost care. It was a twin to his father's plant in every way, right down to the way the grey, cactus-like stalk was covered in what looked suspiciously like pustules. If it weren't for the fact that Mr Longbottom would never relinquish his plant to anyone, Neville would have sworn that he was now in possession of the very same one. Now that he had one of his own, Neville knew that the boil-shaped bumps were the plant's defence mechanism, and it was the Stinksap secreted by that defence mechanism that he and his father had been drenched with that day.
He had tried to grow some of the seeds for himself, over the summer, but his efforts were fruitless; the time for planting seeds was long past, and it would have been difficult to grow the plant in such an unfamiliar climate at any rate. Even though he planted every seed that he had been able to take from the plant, not one of them showed even the slightest inclination toward sprouting, no matter what he did to try and encourage them. Tiny greenhouses made of pots and glass, near-constant care and attention, even a heating charm cast by his grandmother; none of them seemed to have the slightest effect on the seeds, and Neville had sadly put the few surviving seeds away the day before he went back to Hogwarts, resigning himself to not being able to have a plant like his father's.
But last summer, Great Uncle Algie had returned from his holiday in Assyria, and had brought with him the plant that sat on the bookcase now, as a present for Neville's birthday. Neville didn't know how he had managed to get the rare plant into the country, and he didn't ask; he had just accepted the gift gladly, and wondered if Algie knew how much the plant truly meant to him. There was no reason why he should, since Algie hadn't been in the hospital that day, but somehow he seemed to have a knack for knowing these things, much like Professor Dumbledore knew about anything that ever went on at Hogwarts. It was always possible that Algie's sister, Neville's grandmother, passed on the news of such events, but even that didn't quite explain the way Algie seemed to know these things, whenever they happened.
Now all that was left in the box was a collection of scraps of paper, in a variety of different shapes, sizes and colours, which Neville carefully poured onto the floor, turning the box upside down to make sure it was empty. There were scraps of parchment, torn from doctor's notes and any other pieces of paper his parents could get hold of. There were wrappers from the sweets that Neville and other well-wishers brought to them regularly, wrappers from both Muggle and Wizarding varieties of sweets. There were even a few pieces that one or the other of them had tried to write on, although it never came out as more than a childish squiggle. But all of them were just as precious as the other things in the box, like the tiny scraps of pottery an archaeologist might find on a site. Worthless to the untrained eye, but worth their weight in gold in the right hands.
Neville couldn't remember when his parents had started giving him the little scraps of paper, or when he had started keeping them; he considered the day his mother had bandaged his head as the day his collection had started, even though he was sure he already had some of the scraps by then. To begin with, he had checked each of the little scraps carefully when he had taken them home, expecting there to be some kind of note from his parents on them, even a little scrawl that they had made for his to read. But aside from the squiggles that a couple of them bore, there was never anything there for him to see. Over the years, he had tried every device he knew, just in case there was something that he had been unable to see before. He had spent entire Revealers rubbing carefully over the papers, and cast Revealing Charms on them, all to no avail, but he still tried again, each time he learned of a new way something could have been hidden. But for now, all he had was a selection of papers that had been held by the hands of one of the people he cared about most of all. And that was enough.
Finally, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out his latest prize; a tiny sweet wrapper, made of thin, greaseproof paper, with the words 'Drooble's Best Blowing Gum' written on one side. He already had several wrappers from that brand of sweet, as his mother's cousin Gertrude often came by with a box of them. It seemed they had once been his mother's favourite, when the two of them were children, and Gertrude still entertained some hope that the sweets might jar some memory in Alice's mind. Privately, it made Neville feel a little hurt that she should think so – if seeing and speaking to her own son did no good, what good could a childhood memory possibly do – but every time she had spoken to him about it, he had held his tongue. Listening to her ramble on about how, some day, she might remember the taste. It was silly. It was ridiculous. But Neville found he couldn't bear the idea of taking away his relative's little shred of hope, so he sat in silence, wishing it all could be so.
Neville carefully smoothed out the wrapper between his finger and thumb, stretching it out just enough to make pull the paper thin and make the words readable. Then, he opened the drawer of his bedside table, and pulled out a worn Revealer, which he rubbed optimistically on both sides of the paper, but to no avail. Disappointed despite himself, he returned the Revealer to the drawer, promising himself that he would try a Revealing Charm as soon as he returned to Hogwarts. Blowing the remnants of his rubbing from the paper, Neville put the wrapper onto the pile with the others, and started to run his fingers through the little pile for a moment, savouring the feel of them underneath his fingertips. Then, he pulled his legs underneath him, and sat cross-legged, admiring his little collection, wishing that it could have been larger, but happy that he had managed to keep hold of what he had. It took only a short while before his vision started to mist up, and when it did, he knew better than to try and fight it.
Much later, when the day had given way to night and the only light came from the bright crescent moon out the window, a knock came on the bedroom door. A moment later, the door was pushed gently aside, to reveal Neville's grandmother, who crept into the room quietly, almost catlike in her care to be silent. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept around the bed, looking for her young charge, even though she already knew exactly where he would be, and why he had stayed in his room for so long.
Just as she had expected, Neville was asleep on the little strip of floor between his bed and the window, his breathing soft and gentle, still dressed in the clothes he had worn all day. His legs were tucked in at his chest, and his arms were tightly wrapped around a small, mahogany box.
Disclaimer: I do not own the world where this is set, or any of the characters that are in it. In particular, I do not own Neville Longbottom, his family, or the events of his life. And in the case of the latter, who would want to? Anything you see that's original is mine, but it wouldn't stand without the frame provided by JKR's wonderful work.
So, what did you think? Please let me know, by leaving a review. Hopefully, it fits in reasonably well with events from canon, but I didn't have time to do an extensive check before posting. But, as canon as it stands will only last another couple of days, I don't suppose it matters. I did originally plan a longer fic, with a couple more items in the box, but 8800 words or so should be enough for anybody. There may be more of my unfinished works in the next few days - thoughthey are very different to this- so keep your eyes open if you so desire.