"Professor, I still don't know why you picked me. We've been at it for weeks and all the other deputies are still completely outpacing me in every subject."
"And yet, Mister Longbottom, you have gone from the bottom of your class to outpacing the other students of your year, and in all our live-fire exercises and demonstrations you more than hold your own. Perhaps the question you should be asking is not why my perception of you differs from yours, but why yours differs from mine. In fact, write me ten inches on that, due tomorrow."
Neville hadn't had time to freak out about the expectations placed on him, because of all the work those expectations entailed.
Free transfiguration while running. Coordinated levitation charms. Target practice on broomsticks. Repetitions of the patronus charm. And so many essays it made Hermione jealous, despite the fact that that she was an impossible number of electives. Literally impossible; many of the classes were at the same times.
Neither Draco or Susan had as much work, and neither was in Gryffindor, so Hermione and Neville spent many long nights in the library together, often silently reading different books, simply comforted by being near one another.