homecoming, n. a return to one's home; arrival at home

the file i uploaded got messed up so hopefully this time it works/looks ok!

professor neville, neville&luna (platonic), neville/hannah, some background ginny/harry/draco but dont worry about it its not the focus

warnings for mentioned death eater shenanigans (torture, death)

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Neville is eleven when he loses his toad on the train to Hogwarts and the bushy-haired Hermione Granger comes to his rescue, as becomes a running theme during his first years at school. He finds Trevor the toad, later at Hogwarts, but he doesn't remember if he ever properly thanked Hermione for helping him.

Neville is twelve when the entire school assumes his classmate, Harry the-Boy-Who-Lived-and-supposedly-killed-You-Know-Who Potter, is the one petrifying and trying to murder muggleborns. He doesn't know what to think, if he's honest he highly doubts the heir of Slytherin is Harry, but when Harry is definitively revealed not to be the culprit he still breathes a sigh of relief.

Neville is fourteen when he asks Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball and spends the entire evening trodding on her feet. As the Ball ends he escorts her to the Gryffindor Common Room, and she grins and tells him she had a great time, before going to bed. To this day, and for the rest of his life, he has absolutely no idea how he pulled it off. He's never asked her about it, either - that's not the sort of thing you ask a girl, much less the girl currently dating the Boy Who Lived.

Neville is fifteen when he properly meets Luna Lovegood, and it is the first time for both of them having proper friends. He had his dormitory, sure, but Dean and Seamus had their own thing going on, and while Ron and Harry try to include him when they remember to, he's still distinctly outside their friendship. Luna isn't exactly what he expects in a first friend, but he finds all her oddities strangely relieving.

Neville is sixteen when he is invited to Professor Slughorn's "Slug Club". He is invited exactly once, and then never again. He doesn't think he minds that much.

Neville is seventeen when he mouths off to a Death Eater and gets tortured for it. It's stupid, and he knows it, but he can't just stand back and watch little kids get hurt, he can't he can't hecan'thecan't hecan't -

Neville is seventeen when, not strictly speaking in this order, he kills Voldemort's snake, watches Harry Potter come back from the dead, is set on fire in front of basically everyone he's ever known and loved, and then proceeds to pass out in the Great Hall and snore loudly. He doesn't dream, thankfully, and when he wakes up Luna is sitting next to him like she had been there for hours, and she comments on his snoring.

Neville is nineteen when he walks in on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy snogging. He must make a noise, because the two turn around, both looking terrified. He takes about a minute to figure out why two exceptionally powerful wizards are so scared of him - they're Draco Malfoy and Harry- fucking -Potter - but he assures them he won't blab and leaves them to it. A couple days later he sees Malfoy and Ginny Weasley on what could only be described as a date, so he figures they sorted it out.

Neville is twenty one when he meets Hannah again, from Hogwarts. He meets her in a bookstore, where she is looking for instructions on how to care for a rare plant gifted to her, and he saves her several galleons, both for the price of the book and the tea they later talk over.

Neville is twenty four when he gets married and knocks over his goblet and spills wine all over his wife - his wife - and nobody can get through the speeches without falling into helpless giggles, not even himself or his wife. In their wedding picture, which he has on his desk at all times, he's red enough in the face to make a Weasley proud, and Hannah is still covered in wine but smiling lovingly at him anyway.

Neville is twenty eight when he returns to Hogwarts, this time as a teacher. He stubs his toe on the step into the Greenhouse and lets out a loud swear in front of a bewildered class of third years, and can never seem to shake the instinct to call the teachers who were still there from his days in school by their titles. It takes Headmistress McGonagall - who he grudgingly calls Minerva once, just to get her off his back - to get him to at least drop the titles when talking to them.

Neville is thirty when he sits in his office, in a building he never thought he'd return to, and takes a sip of his favourite tea in a cup from his wife.