Chapter 1

Maple Trees and Swings

The house was silent, and that was just the way he liked it. No yelling, so screaming, just silence. It was odd for an eleven-year-old to enjoy silence to such an extent, but then again, this particular eleven-year-old was odd anyway.

Neville Longbottom lay in the silence of his basement bedroom staring at his favourite spot on the ceiling. A rather odd stain, in the curious shape of a motorcycle was all that Neville had to amuse himself during his long hours of silence.

He would imagine that he was on that motorcycle, flying away from this house, this street, this life. He would imagine that the bike belonged to someone who was far more interesting than he or the other occupant in this house. But that was as much as he could do. Imagine.

Suddenly the blissful silence was broken by a bellow that was only possible to be made by his dear housemate.

"NEVILLE, GET YOUR BONY BUTT UP HERE!" The voice called.

Despite the fact that the voice sounded very angry, Neville smiled. It was true that his butt was rather bony; hell that is all he was, skin and bones; but for someone such as the man who called to draw attention to it, was slightly amusing.

As he meandered up the stairs Neville retreated to the blissful sanctity of his imagination.

For some odd reason, he had always wondered what it would be like to be slightly rounder than he was. Everytime he stood before a mirror, Neville would look upon his slightly round, but rather gaunt face, and puff out his cheeks. It was odd, but he always liked the idea of him weighing more than the meagre 25 kilos he did now.

Finally he reached the door that lead to the rest of the house. Twisting the handle and pushing hard, Neville stepped out into the pristine cleanliness of the kitchen.

Adjusting his eyes to the blinding glare from the disinfected surfaces, Neville looked around. His eyes fell upon the figure sitting at the kitchen table with an enormous paper stretched out before him. Creeping closer to the table, Neville tried to catch a glimpse of the paper the man was reading. However, he could only make out a small section before it was hastily hidden by the man.

The Daily Prop? Neville wondered. What an odd name for a newspaper.

Pulling Neville out of his pondering the man before him growled. "What you thinkin' 'bout boy?"

Hastily, Neville shook himself out of his stupor and put on a doughy look. The man always seem to go easier on his when Neville played the fool. "Nothin' Uncle Albert."

Uncle Albert grunted and got to his feet. Towering at least a meter above the odd eleven-year-old, the man strode over to the fridge. Pulling a piece of paper out from under a magnet the man strode back and shoved it in Neville's hands.

Settling his thin frame back onto the chair Albert said, "That's the stuff I want ye' to do today. All of it, and no slackin'!"

Neville nodded and turned to the list. Although he could read the list perfectly, Neville screwed up his face and tried to look stupid. Obviously, he had a knack for acting, because in an instant his Uncle had ripped the paper from his hands and was reading it to him.

"You're as thick as two short bricks. It says you have to wash the car, mow the lawn, trim the hedges, weed the garden and paint the shed." Albert read, smiling. He always seemed to love the fact that he was smarter than his young nephew was, and who was Neville to tell him otherwise?

"Ohhh...ok." Neville said, with mock-dawning comprehension. He did not bother to tell his Uncle that the car was clean, the lawn was perfectly manicured, the hedge had not had a leaf out of place in years and the garden was void of any weeds, all that was left was the shed. But to tell him so would mean that Neville would not be able to spend and entire day barely doing a thing.

Turning on his heel, Neville hurriedly exited the house and entered the backyard. Neville loved the backyard. It was defiantly his favourite place on Uncle Albert's small property. The yard was large, far larger than what it appeared to be. It was easily larger than that of Mrs. Livingston who lived next door, or even that of Mr. Barnes who was far more well off than his dear Uncle Albert.

But Neville did not like it only because it was large, but also because it seemed as if no one saw what he did in there, except for Uncle Albert of course. Neville could not count the number of times, he was lounging around in the shade of the tree up the very back corner, and went unnoticed. Even Mrs. Livingston, the nosiest woman on the street could not see him there, despite that fact that he could see her.

It was because of this, and the fact that it was quite hot on this early August day, that Neville quickly retreated to the shade of his beloved Maple tree and spread out in the shade. Although he was sure he wouldn't be seen, he kept under the cover of a shrub, just in case.

A few minutes went by before Neville heard the telltale signs of his Uncle leaving for work. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Neville returned to his motionless respite.

His Uncle would be gone all day, for he was the owner of a large and prosperous company that manufactured cleaning products. At least he assumed it was cleaning products. Actually, Neville did not even know the name of his Uncle's company. Neville pondered this for a moment before he came up with: Albert Stines' Warehouse of all things Boring...oh and Brooms. Chuckling at his rather lame eleven-year-old sense of humour, Neville got to his feet and slowly made his way over to the shed to do the one task that was inevitable.

As he slowly opened the can of paint that was waiting for him, Neville again wondered what it was that his Uncle sold.

Rarely had he ever spoken about his work, and if he had, it was only to tell Neville to shut up and stop asking questions about his work. He has also never brought anyone home with him, such as a colleague, not while Neville was awake anyway. The only real evidence that Neville had concerning his Uncle's line of work was an image of Albert shoving a rather odd-looking broom and a few bottles of brightly coloured products in to the shed Neville was currently painting. He had long ago given up any futile attempts to break into the shed and have a poke around since that day, so he had pushed the obsession out of his mind. Until today, that is.

Exhausted and coated in several layers of white paint, Neville made his way into the kitchen and made himself some lunch. As always, he opted for the forgotten pieces of food that resided in his Uncle's fridge. He often chose things that had been there for a week at least, for if Uncle Albert found him taking food before dinner, even if dinner was hours away, it would not be pretty.

After a somewhat satisfying meal of old, dry meatloaf and very old potatoes, Neville headed upstairs to shower off.

Stripping down to his boxers, Neville studied himself in the mirror. He was of an average height for a normal boy his age, his body, though somewhat thinner than was would be considered normal, was average looking, and he did not possess any cool disfigurements or disabilities that would make him remotely interesting. Perhaps the only thing that made him the least bit unique was hidden much of the time beneath a fringe of dirty blonde hair. Pulling his fringe aside, Neville leant forward and studied his scar.

It sat a little to the right of the centre of his forehead, and was in the perfect shape of a lightning bolt. Running his fingers along the raised line, Neville sighed. He would give anything to know where the scar came from, but he was too afraid to ask. His Uncle was very strict about questions, especially those concerning Neville's parents, and to break the longstanding assumption he had that Neville was an incompetent fool would be a large waste of hard acting.

After a full half an hour of intense scrubbing, all of the paint was gone and Neville got dressed and headed downstairs. With little else to do but wait for his Uncle to return home, Neville decided to head down to the park.

Hitching up his too-long pants that once belonged to his uncle, Neville started down the path, stepped over the tiny gate and headed down Parsley Drive.

For at least ten minutes, Neville walked down the street, keeping to the pathway and keeping a watchful eye out for any passers by. Despite the fact that his Uncle was safely at work, Neville still felt as if someone was watching him, with disapproving eyes.

Finally, Neville made it to the park and breathed a sigh of relief. He had made it unnoticed and alone, just as he liked it. Making his way over to the swing set, Neville sat down and began to swing himself. It felt so lovely to have the wind in his face after such a long and hot day. He always wondered if the feeling he was experiencing now was any similar to the feeling of flying. He liked to think it was and for this reason, he let out a loud and cheerful laugh.

"Oi, Longbottom!" A voice called.

Immediately regretting his rash visit to the park, Neville stopped swinging and looked around for the voice.

"Over here Longbutt!" Another voice called.

Neville swallowed. He knew those voices and they were not the voices of friends.

Approaching him from every direction, five children, all ranging from the ages of 11-12, suddenly appeared. Three extremely large and mean boys, and two girls.

"Well, well. Look what we have here!" Bruce Barlow said smirking.

"A stick in a wig!" One of the girls, Leyla Springs, sneered.

"A worm with clothes on!" Charlie Banks, said, chortling stupidly.

"Come on guys, leave him alone!" The other girl, Sophia Edmonds, said.

Neville gaped at Sophia. He always knew she did not like they way they picked on him, but never had she said anything about it!

"Ugg...Sophia! You couldn't possibly feel sorry for this little stick-bug could you?" Louis Marsh, the leader of the group exclaimed with incredulity.

Immediately Sophia turned a magnificent shade of red and mumbled something along the lines of, "I didn't mean that..."

Neville, who had stopped swinging, looked at the girl, and feeling slightly reckless said, "I wouldn't want her pity anyway. Your all just a bunch of-"...THWACK!

What should have been a rather loud and offensive swear word coming from Neville's mouth was only to be replaced by an extremely large and hard fist.

In a mere matter of seconds Neville was sprawled out on the ground with all but one of the gang on top of him, pummelling almost every centimetre of his body. With Bruce and Charlie tackling his lower body and Leyla and Louis attacking his upper body, Neville's head was left free to toss from side to side as he screamed out with pain. Suddenly he noticed Sophia standing only a few meters away with one hand over her mouth and the other rummaging around in her pocket. Casting a pleading look to the brunette, Neville was shocked to see her turn on her heel and run straight out of the park, taking Neville's last hope with her.

With the one person, he would ever imagine helping him, now fleeing in the opposite direction, Neville retreated to the darkness of his mind, and finally unconsciousness took him.