Neve was eight years old when she fell in love.
It hadn't been a gradual thing, or something abrupt and crashing like love at first sight. It was latched onto by desperation, and for the feeling of something warm that she didn't frequently experience.
The day was her birthday, and she wasn't feeling very blessed, but grandmother said she had been blessed with a new year to enjoy a sunny day and airy clouds anyways. The breeze carried the scent of freshly packed soil and wild lavender, drifting to the Longbottom Lodge from the field a few yards away. It was a cool summer's breeze, though still chilly enough to be wary of catching a cold.
Her grandmother had invited the entirety of the Longbottom family, which wasn't so extensive. There were her grandfather's siblings, who may as well have been her grandmothers—they sometimes seemed like they could all be one person and each other's adversaries at the same time. Granduncle Algie was a bubbly man, one who did not take much seriously but for a good pipe and the mystery that was Neve's possibly present magic—and his methods on cracking the case weren't very picturesque, or ethical for that matter.
But he conducted them with a deranged professionalism. Whether it was throwing plates and bowls at an unsuspecting baby Neve, just to be saved by his horrible aim, or being repeatedly but sporadically woken up by his screams right in her ear in the middle of the night, he noted imaginary happenings and wrote them all down in a small book that was always tucked away somewhere in his robes.
Long story short—Neve already despised the man.
Neve liked her grandaunt Enid much better, because she was blank and placid as granduncle Algie was sprightly. When her grandmother was being a little too much, she could always floo to her grandaunts and leisure in her drawing room as she knitted her scarfs and mittens. And what was even better was that Neve was convinced Enid didn't realise she was there half the time—so unlike granduncle Algie's constant observation and grandmother's persistent nit-picking. At grandaunt's small cottage on the tree line of a small forest, it was a haven where she could literally feel invisible, unseeable, and it could have been the best feeling ever.
But it was her birthday, and she had nowhere to escape to because grandaunt Enid was sitting right beside her at the dining table, granduncle Algie was watching her with a curious glint in his rheumy eyes, and her grandmother was snapping something to her that she had long ago shut out. It was midday so there were wedged club sandwiches out, filled with sliced meats and fresh vegetables, cupcakes, cream and custard tarts, and mini gateaux towered on a tiered stand, but no cake. The Longbottom's would light it with 8 candles at 9 pm, when Neve had exactly entered the world, and as they did every birthday—she was still seven now.
Granduncle Algie finally looked away from her and set his eyes on the ham and polony sandwich the house-elves had assembled. He may as well have had a watering mouth and a dripping tongue with how he was leering at it. He reminded Neve of one of his hounds that he kept at his home in Kensington—feral things, her grandmother often sneered.
"Those look awfully juicy, don't you think, Neve?" he said, reaching over and plucking two wedges onto his plate, "but don't take too many now! Might be your birthday, but your pert little tummy cares not!"
Neve flushed red, looking down at her sandwich wedge that she had taken only one large bite of. She had thought of getting one of the toffee and chocolate cupcakes among the stand, but her grandmother's side eye dashed the hope away.
She managed a small laugh and a smile. "I'm full anyway," she muttered, pushing her plate away reluctantly.
"Good girl," her grandmother praised, and Neve felt reassured once more.
Her grandaunt made a grunting sound and continued chewing her sandwich, but Neve was unsure whether it was from the food, or whether she agreed with her brother's remarks. She liked grandaunt Enid, but that wasn't because she helped her out in situations such as this—she could be the perfect blueprint for the phrase, turning a blind eye.
Her grandmother watched her fiddle with her thumbs under the table for a moment, critical and severe, but she continued to knife her strawberry and lemon tart, plopping a small fragment into her mouth.
While everyone ate their lunch, Neve didn't do much but ponder. Ponder on what dinner would be like, because she had been speaking to one of the house-elves, Sprinky, and he had told her that a 5-course meal awaited them. Would her granduncle tell her she would get even fatter if she ate the food? She knew Sprinky wouldn't like that, because he always mentioned with a sad tone that she hadn't touched her plate. And in any case, she'd like it better if she didn't go to sleep with an aching stomach and a dry throat.
She supposed it was for the best, because according to him, she grew just a little bigger every time he came around. The thought sobered her when she was grumpy with fatigue and hunger; that these feelings were because of her, and that food would always be there—she just needed to be mindful of when she was eating it. As her family said, she was the sole heiress of the House of Longbottom, and there would always be certain expectations.
Still, she knew her grandmother would come sliding into the room Neve was in when he left and silently place on her lap a plate of food—more food than even Algie himself ate alone—then leave as smoothly and silently as she had come (but this wasn't guaranteed when she was the one to put her off eating). Neve wasn't sure why she did so because she usually was quietly agreeing, or voiced her thoughts, when her granduncle said the things he said. But she wasn't sure why her grandmother did a lot of the things she did, so it wasn't a stretch in her mind.
With a brighter countenance, Neve sat straighter in her seat and gazed over the food once more. If she were quick enough, she could steal the apple and cinnamon cupcake that was just in front of her without anyone seeing. Her heart pounded at the definite consequences of being seen, but she felt...well, she didn't know what it was.
So, when her grandmother was looking down at her tart as she cut a new part off and granduncle Algie was sufficiently absorbed with his spilling plate, Neve darted her hand out and hid the slightly squashed cupcake under the table. She was sure grandaunt Enid had seen her, but as Neve had previously stated, she turned a blind eye to it.
Neve pursed her lips, her cheeks red with frazzled nerves: "Can I be excused, grandma? I've f-finished my meal," she stammered, not daring herself to look at her grandmother.
She felt her grandmother regard her for a moment. Neve felt her chest stop moving, her breath stuck in her throat, but her grandmother said, "Well, go on then. And…happy birthday, Neve."
Neve shot out her seat with quickness and almost tripped over as she ran out of the dining room and up the stairs. She only realised what her grandmother had said when she had reached her room and she sat with her back to the shut door, panting and nibbling on her warm, melted, crushed cupcake.
It brought a smile to her face, and she regretted not having caught her words sooner. Otherwise, Neve could have smiled at her in the dining room and her grandmother might have reciprocated the gesture.
For the next few hours before dinner, Neve was, in some ways, cooped in her room unwillingly, but also by her own accords. She heard the house elves bustling downstairs from her window, stressed more so by her grandmother's ever-growing list of orders than their actual tasks. And Neve knew that if she left the room and encountered her grandmother, she would similarly be worked on, despite it being her birthday.
By the time she had finished her cupcake and was listlessly lying on her bed, she grew curious of her presents. She knew grandaunt Enid's, only because she had told her the week before, and because it was the same every year.
Granduncle Algie had come around to her room a couple of times, bombastically promoting his present and its many benefits for her predicament. That was all she needed to know in order to stay far, far away from him and far, far away from his healthful present.
Her grandmother was the most surprising on birthdays out of all her grand relatives. She never could apprehend what was going to be under all that misshapen wrapping paper.
Her grandmother tended to wrap gifts into shapes that were so far removed from the actual gift as to not even be able to guess it. Last year, she had given her a present wrapped into the shape of a small chair—and when Neve had ripped the paper off, it had been nothing else but a rectangular container of colourful hair clips. She did the same for her grandaunt and uncle too, and for any of her close friends. She supposed it was her type of fun, watching someone's face light up, then turn to absolute shock.
She kept herself busy with a book she had found in her grandmother's office, a novel by the name of Witches without Faith. It was, as far as Neve had read, about a quartet of witch sisters in 1700's America, on a journey of survival from the growing witch hunts. It had begun with a very gruesome scene, and that had startled Neve enough to place the book down for a good week.
Now, she read it curled up on her armchair, reading an adorable, inconspicuously flirtatious dialogue between one of the sisters and her muggle sweetheart, who happened to be the son of a fervent witch-hunter. The longer she read, the more the sound of external bustling in the Longbottom Lodge slipped away—until she was folded completely in a warm cocoon of giggles and quiet.
The sun began to set outside, and so did Neve's eyelids. She didn't realise her sleepiness until she was blinking away weary tears and the words on the pages began to merge and swim. Neve suppressed a yawn and looked outside to see the sun succumbing to a bed of pink and orange clouds, with a purply-blue sky sliding around it.
Her grandmother would be upset if she slept so close to the evening, and her granduncle Algie would probably try some new unhinged experiment on her if he found her so—she was guaranteed no reception with grandaunt Enid—but even as she thought this, her eyes closed, and her book fell deftly into her lap.
Hey! If you aren't new, this chapter is very different from the chapter previously here. Actually, they're extremely different. I realised the chapter before really was just a miscellaneous piece of fic that just didn't match with what I wanted for this story, so I just replaced it with this one. I'll be starting afresh with an actual direction and structure in mind for this story, and for Neve.
Hopefully, all the people who've been following this story aren't too mad at this, and I do believe that this chapter and the following chapters that I'll be writing will be more enjoyable and generally better than 'dances, toads and teeth' (the previous chapter).
As a side note, I'm still not good at being consistent with my writing and I know my motivation will waver a lot, so I guess my uploads may be sporadic.
But, other than that, please ENJOY!