He stood at the gate of Hogwarts, looking behind him. The school was as old and stately as ever. That didn't change facts. At Hogwarts, time seemed to stand still. You aged in a place that hadn't felt its own age in hundreds of years. Something about that last year, which had cost them all so dearly, had everyone perking up and looking around for the first time since they were sorted. Few really knew where they would be going with their lives; they were only eighteen and nineteen for heavens sake.
Standing there, though, Neville could feel time suddenly speeding up, trying to make up for the seven years when he'd been allowed to live in a vacuum. The rush of the train would take them away from the bubble, some forever.
Neville, however, was not leaving. Gran had died, leaving him hardly enough money to live on in Muggle London for a month, let alone longer. Taking pity on the boy, Professor Sprout had announced the onset of her arthritis (to the chagrin of Madam Pomphrey who insisted Pomona had nothing of the sort) required that she procure an assistant for in the greenhouses and in classes. Soon.
Neville felt time rushing by him as he stood on the edge of campus, people moving around him toward the carriage. For them, time would move and they would be carried away into they-knew-not-where. For Neville, time would always stand still in that place where you cannot feel its passing. For Neville, things would never truly change.