Soaring was far from Frank's mind when he arrived at Augusta's house - the home that Frank and subsequently, Neville, had grown up in. It was a modest detached, red brick house set towards the front of a medium size plot. The front garden was a riot of colour, with beds of flowers lining the path to a door painted dark green that was the entrance to the house. As he walked down the path, Frank could smell the delicate aroma of the flowers. He paused at a pink rose which was in full bloom, he leaned towards it and inhaled its sweet fragrance.

"That one is called Homecoming Queen," Neville informed him. Frank glanced over at Alice who was smelling a peach coloured rose. "That one is called Peace," Neville said quietly.

"Did you do all this?" Frank asked his son, with a sweep of his hand to indicate the garden.

"Yes," replied Neville. "Sometimes I grow plants for their beauty and not their usefulness."

"They are beautiful," Alice said standing next to her son, who was a good nine inches taller than her, matching his father's height. "And the smell is not overpowering."

Neville smiled – that had been his intention – a colourful display to counteract the rich starkness of the building but with a gently welcoming scent that followed you along the path but didn't come with you into the house. Augusta opened the door and they entered the house. A small brown and white dog ran into the hallway and rushed up to Neville wagging its tail enthusiastically. Neville placed the bags he was still carrying onto the floor, knelt down and stroked the dog in greeting.

"Hello Jack," said Frank, who had seen the dog several times when they had visited in preparation for their return. Jack came over to Frank who petted him in greeting to be shortly joined by Alice. When Jack was satisfied that these visitors were friends he wandered back into the kitchen.

"I'll take your bags upstairs," Neville said. Frank and Alice followed him as Augusta went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Neville took the bags into a large room facing onto the garden they had just walked through. It had been Neville's childhood room and Frank's before him. Neville had moved into the smallest bedroom when he knew his parents were coming home. He put the bags on the king size double bed. "Gran's making a cup of tea," he said. "Come down when you're ready."

Frank and Alice took in the room that was to be their home from now on. Light flooded in through a pair of sash windows and illuminated the room with a soft light. The walls had been freshly painted in pale blue, a set of cream coloured wardrobes were aligned along one wall opposite the bed. On either side of the bed were matching cabinets, the same colour as the wardrobe. On one of the cabinets was a pot plant with dark green leaves and vibrant purple flowers.

"Did you grow this one too?" Frank asked Neville.

"Yes," said Neville proudly because it was a difficult plant to grow and had needed careful and particular attention in order to thrive.

Alice opened her bag and transferred her few belongings into the wardrobe and cabinets. She completed the task quickly and there was ample space remaining. Augusta walked into the bedroom to tell them that the tea was brewing. She looked at all the empty space on the rail. "Perhaps you need to go shopping for buy more clothes," she observed.

"That would be nice," Alice said eagerly looking from Augusta to Neville. Whilst Alice had never been obsessed with shopping, she had sufficient influence from her mother to appreciate good clothes.

"Why don't you go with Hannah?" Neville suggested, the idea of shopping for women's clothes did not appeal to him. "She has good taste."

"Of course she does, son," said Frank mischievously, "She is dating you."

Neville blushed, Frank grinned. There was a certain satisfaction in embarrassing your children as long as it was not done maliciously. His smile faded slightly as he recalled all the other aspects of Neville's life that he had missed out on. He was aware of a sombre emotion starting to creep into his mind, like a grey cloud moving across the sun. This was a familiar sensation that had plagued him since Bellatrix had tortured him. For many years he had simply closed down and retreated into nothingness when the feeling came, but as part of his recovery he had been shown how to cope. The feeling in this instance was mild and he easily thought of positive things and pushed the clouds aside. Sometimes the blackness would not go and took longer to work through, in extreme cases he resorted to medical potions but he was far from that today. He spoke to Augusta to distract himself from the feelings, "Mother, did you mention tea?" For the rest of the day the Longbottom family acted like they were guests in their own home as they began to accustom themselves to living together on a permanent basis. Frank and Alice went to bed early claiming to be tired but in reality it was to be alone and away from Augusta's over anxious hospitality.

In privacy of their bedroom, Frank lay in bed and watched Alice get ready for bed. He recalled the first time he had seen her. It was during a ball at Beauxbatons School where he had spending time with his French exchange student. His French companion had been politely remaining with Frank at the ball, as good manners demanded, but it was clear to Frank that he would rather be enjoying the event with his friends than struggling to communicate with Frank's basic knowledge of the French language. Someone had pointed out the English girl standing on her own against the wall and Frank had volunteered to keep her company, much to the relief of his exchange student who readily agreed to the plan.

Frank attended Hogwarts School and knew all the girls of around his own age at the school but he didn't recognise this girl. She watched warily as he approached, glancing to either side of her as if to see who he really coming to speak to. He stopped in front of her and she looked up at him in mild surprise. She was shorter than he was, with dark brown hair tied back into a bun, she had a round face and grey eyes which were reflecting the light from the ballroom like colourful stars.

"Hello," he said, looking down at her and holding out his hand. "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Frank."

"Alice," she said returning his handshake quickly and pulling her hand away. She had small soft hands and Frank found himself wishing the handshake had lasted longer.

"You're English aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"So am I," he said. "Do you go to school here?" he asked.

"No."

"Neither do I - I'm here with my French exchange student." He paused for her to respond but she made no reply or comment and Frank began to wonder if he might have been better to stay with his the French students and struggle with the language. He persevered with the conversation - it would be impolite to just walk away. "Then what brings you here?" he asked.

"My father," she said indicating with her head a distinguished looking grey haired man who was talking with the wizard that Frank knew to be the Beauxbaton's Principal.

"Are you going to come to school here?" he asked.

She stared at him as if the idea had never occurred to her. "No, I have private tutors at home. I don't need to go to school."

He hadn't met anyone who was home schooled before and asked out of interest, "How are you going to do the OWL examinations? Do you have to do them at home on your own?"

For the first time she smiled and it made her rather plain face light up, Frank felt his heart give a lurch, and at some instinctive level he knew that there would only ever be one person to share his life and he was looking at her. "No," she said, unaware of the emotions currently flooding through Frank, "I shall take them at Hogwarts. My tutor says it's easier to organise the OWLs if all the examinees are in the same place at the same time."

"Are you doing them this year?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes," she replied.

"So am I – we shall do them together. What subjects are you taking?"

After that the ice was broken and Alice spoke animatedly and enthusiastically about the subjects she was studying for. She had a perspective on learning that was new to Frank who studied subjects because he had to and not because he wanted to.

When Alice came to Hogwarts to take her OWLs Frank was her guide, showing her around the school and sharing anecdotes and cautions about the staff, students and school. Alice passed her OWLs with good grades and persuaded her parents to let her come to Hogwarts to do her NEWTs. Those last two years at Hogwarts were the best years of Frank's time there. He and Alice were inseparable and their classmates jokingly referred to them Mr and Mrs Longbottom long before they actually were. Influenced by Alice's sensible approach to studying they both achieved top grades in their NEWTs and enrolled in the Ministry of Magic's auror training course, in which they both graduated with distinction. At that time Voldemort was already on his first rise to power. Much of Frank and Alice's early work was investigating disappearances of wizards and witches, especially those with a known link to the muggleborn or those who supported and defended muggles.

Given their line of work, Frank and Alice had intended to wait until the battle with Voldemort was over before having children. Alice's pregnancy with Neville had been unplanned and unexpected but he was never unwanted. They should have stopped working as aurors as soon as they realised a baby was on the way, but they thought the cause was too important to just walk away from. They already had a reputation as diligent and capable aurors and perhaps they would always have been a target to the Death Eaters whether or not they were working as aurors.

Neville was now of a similar age that Frank and Alice were when they had been injured. Frank was deeply sorrowful and resentful that he had missed out on seeing his son grow up. Despite the fact that Neville had been a regular visitor with Augusta to St Mungo's, those days were a black hole in Frank's memories, just vague feelings of security knowing that Alice was nearby, and impressions of other people flitting in out of their daily routine. For a long time Neville had figured no more than some of the senior healers who popped in from time to time to check on Frank's progress and always declared there had been none.

On his darker days, Frank would speculate whether Neville would have had a better life if he and Alice had died that day. Admittedly Neville would have been an orphan like Harry Potter but unlike Harry, he would have been brought up by people who loved him and cared for his welfare. Neville wouldn't have needed to visit St Mungo's and see the parents he couldn't remember ever being whole and who were less than a shadow of what they once were. Perhaps Neville's parents would have been remembered as heroes and not forgotten as an embarrassment. Perhaps their house would have been marked out as a shrine to their bravery and not sold because the money was needed for medical fees.

As part of his counselling Frank had been advised to look on the positive side and rejoice in what he had found rather than what he had lost. He knew that if he had died the day that Bellatrix attacked him he would never have seen his son reach adulthood, and for that he was grateful. He was not sorry that Bellatrix was dead, she deserved it. Her incarceration at Azkaban had not turned her from her path of evil. She was one of the people who had survived the feelings of despair caused by the dementors because she had no remorse for the things she had done.

Alice finished her night time ablutions and climbed into bed next to Frank. He stopped his reminiscing, lay down under the sheets and pulled her into his arms. It was wonderful to be able to share a bed with Alice after years of sleeping apart. When the private rooms at St Mungo's had been created the hospital regulations stopped short of providing double beds. Frank and Alice had simply pushed the two single beds together but a proper double bed was so much better. There was no annoying gap in the centre forcing the occupants to be on one side or the other. Like many other factors which St Mungo's had overlooked when caring for Frank and Alice, sharing a bed calmed their sleep and the nightmares had almost become a thing of the past.

Despite the early hour Alice and Frank soon drifted off to sleep secure in each other's arms and comforted by their presence.

-oOo—

Frank was bored. For a man who had spent over 15 years sitting or lying down and staring vacantly into nothingness for hours on end, you may think that he was used to boredom but this was altogether different. At St Mungo's he was like a clockwork toy that had been overwound and emptied out of movement and initiative which spent its time just sitting and staring into space waiting for the toymaker to fix him. The sedative potions they had been given at St Mungo's in the name of compassionate treatment had added to his inactivity. Now that the key to wind him up and reanimate him had been found he was ready and eager to take his place in the world.

He and Alice had been living with Augusta and Neville for several months and they no longer felt like guests. The four of them worked as unit in the running of the household but Frank wanted more from his life than domesticity. He and Alice had often spoken of what they could do to be of more help. They both had a small disability pension from the Ministry of Magic, which was given to any auror who was injured in the line of duty. As it happened, Augusta and her husband had been obliged to fight for the pension when a jobs-worth wizard at the Ministry (who had never faced anything more dangerous than a paper aeroplane memo flying off-course through his office at the Ministry), had tried to argue that Frank and Alice had not actually been on duty when they were injured and so did not qualify for a pension. Dumbledore, to his credit, had added his voice to Augusta's argument and it was probably his intervention that enabled her to get the money, most of which had gone straight to St Mungo's for the cost of Frank and Alice's care. Now they were no longer patients at the hospital the money was being used for the cost of everyday living.

Frank was an early riser and was the first up in the morning; one of his self-appointed tasks was to make breakfast. Neville came into the kitchen wearing his work clothes.

"You're up early, Neville," Frank commented.

"I've a lot of work to get through at the greenhouse," Neville explained. "The Devil's Trumpet have all flowered at the same time and the flowers need to be hand-picked and dried within 24 hours or they lose their effectiveness when used in potions. I'll be working all day but I may still lose some of the crop."

"I'll help," offered Frank instantly. "You only need to tell me what to do."

Neville hesitated, his parents had been to the greenhouses several times to have a look around but Neville hadn't encouraged their participation in his work. If he was honest, he needed time away from his parents and grandmother and the greenhouses was where he got it. But the Devil's Trumpet was one of the most profitable plants he grew, he could not afford to lose it, especially as he was the main wage earner in the household. He accepted his father's offer. "Thanks Dad. You'll need your wand."

Frank and Neville emerged from the apparation outside the greenhouses. Although wizards were capable of using spells to control the weather, such charms required almost constant attention and the use of greenhouses was preferred for its reliability, leaving the wizards to concentrate the spell making on other areas of horticulture. Neville opened the door to the glasshouse which housed the Devil's Trumpet, as the door swung inwards they were greeted by the rush of warm damp air and the sweet scent of the red trumpet shaped blooms, set among the almost violet colour of the oval shaped leaves. Several insects buzzed around the men when they entered the greenhouse.

Neville swatted at them, "It looks like I've got a problem with insects too," he complained. "I'll have to deal with those when we've saved the flowers." Neville removed his robes and hung them on a peg by the door, it would be far too hot to work in robes. Neville was clad in a T-shirt and shorts - years of manual labour in the fields and greenhouses had made Neville's arms muscular and the strong lines of his torso were clearly defined under his T shirt. The task for today required finesse so Frank's lesser physique was not an impediment.

Neville cast an expert eye over the flowers and quickly walked down some of the aisles between the plants which grew to about 3 feet tall and were on slightly raised beds. "Some of these flowers are already fading," he said to Frank, "the colour is very important - the deeper red it is the more I can charge." He had reached the end of an aisle with Frank close behind him where there was a workbench against one wall. Neville picked up two pairs of gloves and gave a pair to Frank. "All parts of the plant are toxic," he said to his father, "It's best to wear gloves in case you get part of the plant on your hands and accidently ingest it. Not that we handle them much," he said when he saw Frank's worried look as he pulled the gloves on. "Most of the work is done using your wand. Use a simple cutting spell to remove the flower from the plant. Next you preserve the flower using a freeze-dry spell."

"Freeze-dry? What's that?" asked Frank.

"It's a term Hermione used when she helped me invent the spell. I needed a spell that preserved the plant so it could be stored for a long time but also retained its colour. Hermione said the muggles have a preserving technique called freeze-drying with does just those things, with the added bonus that the treated flowers are lightweight and makes them easier to transport. The spell we developed mimics the process that the muggles use and has been a complete success. Hermione even suggested that I copyright the spell so that I earn money when anyone else uses it. In fact, I get quite a regular income from the copyright."

"Do I have to pay copyright fees to use it?" Frank asked lightly.

Neville smiled, "Not today. Let me show you the spell. Each flower has to be treated individually as soon as it cut from the stem. I haven't been able to make the spell work on more than one flower at the same time. All I ended up doing was freezing the entire plant, which is no good because the leaves have to be treated differently when I harvest those."

Frank had left his wand in his robes and he walked back to the entrance to fetch it. The patients on the long term spell damage ward at St Mungo's had not been permitted to have wands. It was only when he had found his wand at Augusta's house that he realised how much he had missed it. The purchase of their first wand was almost a rite of passage for a young wizard: - the excitement of the selection on display in the shop – Ollivander's shop in Frank's case – the anticipation of which wand would be yours and when the wand chose you it was as if the final part of the jigsaw of your body is fitted and you feel complete for the first time, without ever having realised before that something was missing. A wizard's wand was an integral part of their identity. Frank now thought that the hospital policy of removing wands from long term patients, whilst understandable from a patient safety point of view, may have also had the effect of impeding recovery as patients struggled to find themselves after their trauma.

Frank was keen to learn new spells and after he had mastered the freeze-dry spell, (ruining a few of the fading flowers when he practiced), Neville set him to work - cutting, freeze-drying and sorting the blooms into crates dependent upon their colour. "I have a good reputation for quality control," he told his father, "if you're not quite sure which crate it should go in, put the plant to one side and I'll sort them later. Leave one or two flowers on each plant – the most faded ones. They will have to produce fruit so that I have seeds for next year."

By the middle of the afternoon Neville realised that something was seriously wrong with the crop. Not only had all the plants bloomed at the same time, when he had purposefully planted them at different times so that they matured at different rates, but the flowers were fading unnaturally quickly. Normally the blooms would be at their peak for about two days but this crop was deteriorating already. With only himself and his father working they would not be able to harvest the crop in time. Neville needed more help. He cast his patronus, which was the shape of a golden eagle, and within a few minutes Hannah had arrived ready to assist. Frank told Neville to call for Alice and Augusta who willingly added their labour to the task. Frank continued with the harvest whilst Neville showed the women how to use the freeze-dry spell. Frank noticed that his son was very good at teaching them the spell, which none of them had known but under his tuition they learnt it rapidly. Soon all five wizards were working as quickly as they could to save the crop.

Augusta and Alice had brought Jack with them and the dog, who regularly accompanied Neville to work, was reacquainting himself with the smells and sounds of the greenhouse. He rushed up and down the aisles, stopping frequently to investigate things that were of interest only to a dog. He wriggled his small body into a gap behind the plant closest to the wall of the greenhouse so that only his tail was visible, wagging animatedly as he sniffed at his latest find. Neville was the nearest to Jack and spared an indulgent glance at his pet. Suddenly he heard a low throated growl come from Jack and the dog began to dig furiously at the earth by the glass wall. It was unusual for Jack to growl unless there was a rat nearby. Neville stopped work and went over to see what Jack had found. The rear end of Jack was wriggling from side to side as his paws scratched at the surface of the ground. The hole he was digging became bigger as he worked until it was large enough for him to put his head inside. The dog gave a sharp bark and rammed his head into the hole. Neville heard a soft scrabbling and saw something emerge from the hole, Jack backed out the hole and with surprising speed turned in the restricted space and clamped his jaws around the object that Neville had just seen.

"What have you got there, boy?" Neville said, moving slowly towards Jack. The dog crept out from between the plants and stood in the aisle in front of Neville, with something small and dark brown dangling from his mouth. "Jack, drop it," commanded Neville. Jack made no move to obey. "I said drop it!" Neville repeated, readying his wand to stop whatever it was that Jack had found as soon as he let go. Slowly Jack opened his jaws and an object fell from his mouth and landed on the floor. Neville saw it twitch when it landed on the ground indicating that it was not dead. He chose not to cast a spell but instead summoned a glass container from the workbench and placed it over the creature. He then knelt on the floor to examine what Jack had found.

Frank having heard Jack's bark had come over to investigate and together the two men looked at the creature in the jar. It was a humanoid shape, dark brown in colour and about eight inches high. It rolled over inside the jar and sat up.

"That's an imp!" declared Frank.

"An imp?" said Neville looking around, "If there's one there must be more."

Imps were troublesome creatures, almost vermin. Alice and Hannah came over to see why the men had stopped working. Hannah peered into the glass jar, "So that what an imp looks like. It's a bit like a pixie with all the colour washed out. It is quite cute though."

"Cute!" exclaimed Neville, "there's nothing cute about imps. They cause all sorts of mischief. In fact," he said slowly as a thought struck him, "I bet the problem with the Devil's Trumpet was caused by that thing," he said gesturing angrily at the creature under the jar which was now crawling around the ground under the jar to see if it could find a way out. He raised his wand preparing to cast a spell to get rid of the imp when he heard his mother give a low gasp. He glanced towards the sound and saw a stricken look on Alice's face, her eyes looking haunted as a memory rushed unbidden of another person standing with a raised wand over a cowering creature crawling on the floor in fear ready to cast a curse that caused only pain.

Neville slowly lowered his wand and Hannah asked "You weren't going to kill it were you?"

Neville had been about to kill it but shook his head, "I was going to banish it." He saw a softening of his mother's expression and he was relieved that he would not be responsible for causing her to see a repeat of her nightmares.

"How do you know it's the imp causing the problem with the Devil's Trumpet?" Hannah asked to remove the tension of the situation.

"I remember reading something somewhere about a species of imp that has an ability to make plants grow quicker than they should." Neville replied.

"What's the point of that?" asked Frank, "Why would imps need to be able to influence plants? I could understand it if imps were herbivores and they needed to make the plants grow so they could eat them, but imps eat insects. It would make more sense if imps could make insects speed through their life cycle."

"It's much easier to alter plants by magic than it is to alter animals," explained Neville. "That's why wizards are better at arable farming than livestock farming. Maybe the same applies to imp magic," he said as he reasoned his line of thought out loud. "If the imps can bring the plants to maturity more quickly than they would naturally grow, the insects which feed and pollinate the plants would be drawn to them and so increase the food supply for the imps." He looked around the greenhouse and said, "Look at all the insects that are in here – far more than there usually are."

"You could be right," said Frank, "it makes sense, an imp insect farm."

"But I'm not an insect farmer," growled Neville, "I'm a Devils' Trumpet farmer and these blasted creatures have almost destroyed my crop. Let's round up all the imps and banish them to a marsh far away from here where they farm all the insects they want to!" Neville raised his wand ready to cast a simple summoning spell to bring all the imps to him.

"Just a minute," said Frank excitedly, "I think we are missing a trick here. If these imps really can hasten the life cycle of a plant, shouldn't you keep them and use them to bring on plants? You might even be able to grow plants out of season."

Neville paused, "I'm not certain that it is the imps causing the problem, it could be something else. I'll need to find that book and see if this is the species of imp it mentioned and I don't have time to do that right now."

"Try an experiment," said Frank. "Round up the imps, put them in a hutch near some immature plants and see if the plants grow more quickly."

Neville felt the eyes of his family on him and he agreed to his father's suggestion. There were more imps which were pulled in by the summoning spell, a group of about twenty. Neville and Hannah hastily constructed a hutch to contain the imps and they put it another greenhouse where the plants were growing at a normal rate. "How do you look after imps?" Alice said worriedly.

"I don't know, I'll check up on the details later," said Neville "but for now they've got food and water and we need to get on and harvest the rest of the Devil's Trumpet."

The Longbottom family and Hannah worked long into the night before they had picked, preserved and packed the crop. By the time they had finished all they did was go home and collapse, exhausted, into bed.

Frank was the first awake the next day, although much later than he normally awoke. Alice was still asleep beside him and he lay thinking about the previous day. He felt proud of what they achieved and whilst he wouldn't want to spend every day working as intensively or for as many hours, for the first time in many years he had a sense of worth. He had been needed and was able to be useful. He had also enjoyed the work despite the fact that his muscles ached. The work was entirely unlike the work he had undertaken as an auror. A career he no longer the skills to do and to which he had no desire to return. Horticulture, on the other hand might be something he could do. The methodical and repetitive actions of the harvest had been soothing and at no time had any dark thoughts crept into his head. The idea of considering using the imps in the farming practice may never had occurred to him had he still been an auror and where his focus was on the capture and bringing to justice Dark Wizards and other criminals. Imps weren't criminals, it was their nature to affect the plants. Years of counselling and therapy had taught him to think in other ways, to focus on the good, and not the bad, of a given situation.

Frank decided it was time to take control of his future and not be blown about like a leaf on the breeze and he was optimistic that he had found where his future lay, he would work with Neville in the market garden.