Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears and I should warn you that I'm an ugly crier.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if that's you.
Author's Note: First fanfiction ever. Not my first fiction, but yeah, long term reader, first time writer. So take it easy on me, yeah? Be kind and review? Even if it's just a keyboard smash?
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: MC4A; House Competition (Term 4)
House: Hufflepuff
Role: Player (7th Year)
Category: Pre-Round Challenge
Prompt: Bailey (Neville Longbottom)
Representation(s): Child Abuse; Hogwarts; Magic; Ignoring Abuse; Neville Longbottom; Slice of Life; Friends Helping Friends
Bonus Challenges: Second Verse (Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade; Casper's House; Machismo - Gardening)
Word Count: 573
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A Pot Problem
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Neville Longbottom gently scooped the soil mixture into the tiny pot, taking care to not jostle the pebbles that lined the bottom. Most people tried to use straight dirt in their potted plants, but that was where they always went wrong. Potted plants needed a bit of extra help because of their restricted environment. Mixing the soil with other mediums like loam, or a fine mixture of mulch and compost, could mean the difference between a plant that struggled to even survive and one that thrived wonderfully.
People were a lot like that, at least to Neville's thinking. There were certain things they all needed, but sometimes a person needed just a bit of extra help. They might live without that help, but it wouldn't be to the same extent as it would have been if they had that help. Sometimes, if they didn't get that help, the struggle would just become too much. The plant would begin to wither.
Neville frowned down at the pot that he had filled halfway with soil.
That sounded a lot like how Harry had looked this term. Harry had always been the smallest in their year group. In their second year, Harry had still been smaller than most of the first years. When most of their year had growth spurts in their third year and grew several inches, Harry had barely changed at all. Fourth year had finally seen Harry growing a bit, but he was still the second shortest person in their year, only barely taller than Tracey Davis. Then this term, Harry had shown up looking paler than normal with dark shadows beneath his green eyes.
There was also an edge to the temper Harry was displaying for the first time. Even last year when he had been not fighting with Ron, Harry had been more hurt than angry. But this year Harry just seemed angry all the time. Neville didn't blame him for that, of course. If the papers had been saying the sort of things about him that they were about Harry, Neville would have been pretty mad, too. But something about how Harry expressed that anger bothered Neville.
It was as if Harry was screaming at the world and getting increasingly desperate because no one was hearing it.
Neville reached for the mature seedling meant for this particular pot. Placing it gently into the pot, he began to fill in the space around it. Tapping the soil mixture around the root ball, he thought about the other boy. Hermione had been talking about forming a study group for Defense, which Neville rather liked the idea of, but she had been making it seem like Harry was going to be teaching it, instead merely being a part of it. That bothered Neville for multiple reasons.
Primarily, his problem was that putting more stress on already withering plants was not good.
Harry was already struggling with so much, even if Neville didn't fully understand what kept Harry from thriving. How much more could he handle before withering like a plant in a pot of just dirt?
How much before the struggle became just too much?
Neville didn't want to think about what that might mean for his yearmate. He didn't want to think about what it might mean for himself either.
A world without Harry in it seemed unbearably wrong, like a pot without a plant in it.
That may become a problem.