Neville Longbottom actually liked the new Defense professor quite a bit. The man was harsh and asked a lot of his students, but, Neville noticed, he treated all the Houses equally and awarded points likewise. Actually, under normal circumstances, Neville probably would have been terrified of the strange professor, but Reilly had proven to teach fairly, regardless of any personal favorites he might have had among the class.
Ron had wasted no time in spreading the story of Malfoy Senior and Reilly's showdown. Neville personally doubted that the two men had dueled while riding dragons, and Harry and Hermione had confirmed his suspicions, but, whatever had happened between the two, Reilly treated the Slytherins- Draco Malfoy, in particular- just as he did any of the other Houses.
Hermione encouraged the Gryffindors to go to Professor Reilly's office after class. He was knowledgeable about his subject, and, Hermione said, filled with information that he didn't share in class. That in itself was amazing, in Neville's opinion, because the classes were absolutely packed with information. Of course, as they'd noted early on in the year, the man wasn't particularly sociable, and getting that extra information out of him was like pulling teeth. (When Hermione had used that phrase, Harry had laughed, and said something about her parents being dentists, a joke the wizard-born children hadn't quite understood.)
Neville liked Professor Reilly because the man had turned Defense Against the Dark Arts into something interesting, mixing the defense portion with history of the things they were learning to defend themselves against. (Professor Binns had been rather puzzled when the test grades in his class had rapidly increased.)
But, above everything else, Neville liked the professor because he treated him just like every other student. It didn't matter that he wasn't brilliant, like Hermione, or influential, like Malfoy, brave, like Harry, or strong, like Crabbe and Goyle. He wasn't even 'that Longbottom boy', didn't have the stigma of his parents looming over him, making everyone look at him with pity in their eyes. In Professor Reilly's class, he was just…Neville Longbottom, and it didn't matter if he didn't know the answer to something, or if he got the answer wrong, because Professor Reilly didn't care, so long as he learned the lessons in the end.