25 February 1992
When Neville had originally been told about lunch club, his assumption had been that it would be akin to having a tooth pulled. He had had no expectation that he would actually start to look forward to it. He had looked at the group of woe betide misfits and thought that as a group, they were a disaster waiting to happen. The arrogant Slytherin, the presumably evil Hufflepuff and aloof Ravenclaw revealed themselves to be kind interesting people.
Adrian had previously been someone that Neville had only encountered in the hallways or when watching him playing Quidditch. He had of course gathered from Adrian's strict adherence to the rules and insistence that everyone else do the same, that Adrian liked Quidditch. That was an easy conclusion. He had not, however, ascertained that Adrian Pucey was a user of stock phrases, and not a convincing one. He had talked about home like an estate agent and had only really expressed any kind of emotion when talking about Quidditch.
Cho had not been someone he had even heard of before. She did not play Quidditch, they were not in the same year, and they had no friends in common. She kept herself to herself, and did not engage with anyone. If he had asked anyone about 'Cho Chang, you know the Ravenclaw?' almost everyone would have responded that they had no idea who she was. A few Ravenclaws would reluctantly admit to having talked to her once in first year, but nothing beyond that. Cho, however, was as interested in Astronomy as Neville was in plants, and he appreciated that there were others like him out there who cared about something beyond what they were required to learn about in school. She had a strong footing in both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds, which was something Neville had never experienced before.
Addie Potter had been presented to him by the entire house of Gryffindor as Harry Potter's treacherous sister. She had voluntarily been sorted into another house. They did not talk to each other. She was a monster. She was a bad sister. When any of them had tried to talk to her, she had refused to make eye contact with them, which made her a coward, and had given such bizarre responses that they had not quite known where to go. Neville had got to know someone who was the complete opposite to this. He didn't quite understand how the story could have been so misunderstood, but Gryffindors were not exactly known for their critical thinking. She was interested in his interests, she had interesting interests of her own, and she had questions for him about the wizarding world that he could both answer and relate to his own questions. She was also just really nice, and in some of his classes. He couldn't quite believe his luck in having been assigned lunch club associates like them. Perhaps he would one day be able to call them his friends. He very much hoped so.
It was Neville's new found confidence in having friends that prompted him to actually interact with one of his group in public.
"Addie," he called out to her at the end of class on Tuesday. It was the class before lunch, and he decided that now was as good a time as any to try and cement his new acquaintances. He was not exactly sure how people were able to make acquaintances into friends, but imagined that it must be possible as so many people seemed to have done so.
"Hi Neville," she replied, her gaze downcast, as it always was. He didn't actually know what colour her eyes were and he didn't need to. Feeling the need to stare into other people's eyes like it actually meant anything had always been confusing to him.
"Good week so far?" he asked. He knew he was going through his stock phrases, but she didn't seem to mind.
"Oh yeah, it's been great! I received a new book in the post yesterday morning, and it's on early magical farming communities, and how the magical world stubbornly reinvented the wheel once."
"We reinvented the wheel?" He hadn't exactly expected to hear that.
"Yeah. Muggles have had wheels since the 4th millennium BC when they were first thought up in what is now Iraq. After the statute of secrecy, the magical world went 'Ha-ha I know they've already been invented but I object to using them' before pretty much just spending a hundred years reinventing the wheel and calling it something else. 'Rolling supports' isn't exactly a creative name. Language is fascinating."
Neville wasn't quite sure about how to respond to this. He had known that the magical world was fairly behind, but until he had met Addie (and Cho) he had not realised that it was also petty. Wheels were useful, and the magical world stabbed itself in the foot to prove a point.
"I would tell you that I'm sorry about the Quidditch match..."
"...but you know very well that Quidditch is at the bottom of things I care about. It was a shame to see the team disappointed though. They all work really hard at it, and then Gryffindor gets a Ferrari and a first year to drive it."
"Ferrari?"
"Very expensive and ridiculously fast muggle car."
"Ah," Neville said, understanding what she was saying. He had originally thought of Harry having got a Nimbus 2000 as a good thing, but apparently Professor McGonagall had bought it with school funds. There were Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students from low income families and they were no where near being able to afford their own brooms. A Nimbus against a two-year-old Cleansweep was an unfair contest, while a Nimbus against a 'Shooting Star: New and Updated for the 1958 Quidditch Season' was practically cheating.
"It was nice to see Harry happy though," which Neville thought generous. "Are you feeling better?"
"I think I might have been overenthusiastic in attempting to beat up both Crabbe and Goyle," he admitted. "Gryffindor seems to have instilled a bit too much confidence in me."
"How so?"
"Whenever something bad happens or someone is mean to me, someone tells me that of course I'm brave, and of course I am capable of standing up to them. It turns out that I am not worth twelve of other people like I was told, at least not physically. It's good to know that now."
"Gryffindor seems like an…interesting house," Addie said diplomatically. "I don't think that it's for me, and the Sorting House agreed with me. I felt it in my mind for like three seconds before it sorted me into Hufflepuff."
"You can say that we're all reckless and overconfident if you like. It's not exactly untrue."
"I would never say such a thing," Addie said seriously. "Within Hufflepuff, everyone is different from each other, and I assume that other houses are the same. Adrian has never called me names while Malfoy has. They are both Slytherins, but they are very different. It stands to reason that people don't have all the traits of the house they are sorted into. I have almost none of Hufflepuff's."
"I thought I was going to go into Hufflepuff," Neville admitted, "and everyone around me acted like it would be such a bad thing. My Gran wants me to be like my dad, and Ron always used to say that I was a 'duffer' so of course I would end up in Hufflepuff."
"Well clearly he wouldn't get into Hufflepuff either, on account of him not satisfying the kindness quota," Addie said. "If bravery or stubbornness are detrimental to kindness, then are they really worth anything?"
Addie went to talk to Professor Binns about something and Neville decided to go straight to lunch club. For a first time interacting with a member of lunch club outside of it, he considered it to have been a roaring success. The broom thing was awkward, of course it was, but they hadn't exactly had an argument about it. He could honestly say that he agreed with her on that matter, and it had been nice to hear about what she thought about the houses.
He made it to Professor Sprout's office early so helped her to put the chairs out. "Oh thank you Neville," Professor Sprout said gratefully. "My back isn't what it was."
Then the others came in and they all sat down, selected sandwiches and got to talking.
Professor Sprout had assigned the topics randomly, and this was never clearer than this week. Her question for Neville had originally been 'where have you been on holiday?' to which he had responded that he had never actually been on holiday. Therefore, she had changed her question to 'are you going on holiday this summer?' which had been similarly responded to. Apparently Neville's grandmother didn't think that children should go on holiday as they would probably make trouble and ruin it for everyone else, thus being a waste of money. Finally, she settled on a question he could answer 'where would you like to go on holiday to?'
"Well, I've always liked the idea of going to a greenhouse they have in Seyschelles. It's the magical side of the Botanical gardens, and they have examples of magical plants from all across the world, but especially African countries. There are plants there that haven't been catalogued anywhere else as until recently, people thought that they were unimportant."
"Ah yes, I went there last winter. It's a wonderful place that any young herbologist would be lucky to visit."
"It really sounds right up your alley, Neville. Are you sure you couldn't convince your gran that it would be educational or useful for school or something?" Cho reasoned. "I once used that justification to convince my mum to let my aunt take me to a conservatory in Nice. She said it was too far away, but it wasn't exactly a lie. I got some pictures and they have been really useful this year."
"She might agree to that," Neville replied, "but only for a subject like Charms or Defence. She always encourages me to be more like my dad, and while he may have been alright at herbology, it wasn't what he ended up doing for his career."
Professor Sprout thought that it was a shame that Augusta Longbottom was still doing this to her only grandchild.
"Maybe next summer," Adrian said. "Maybe when you're thirteen and about to choose your subjects, she'll see that there are other things you can be good at."
"Did that work for you and Quidditch?" Neville asked, curiously.
"No," Adrian said mournfully. "My parents are considering not even letting me attend the world cup, and I'll be 16 by then. They say it would be 'too taxing for a delicate boy like me'.
"World cup?" Addie asked as she did every time something new came up. Professor Sprout had noticed in recent weeks that she had started to bring a notepad with her and she would occasionally write down something when it came up. Presumably the encyclopaedias in the library were getting good use.
"Like the football one, but Quidditch. It's held every four years, and its location will be set closer to the time."
"How big is this Quidditch game?"
"Some of the biggest and longest games in history have been world cup games."
"And how do you hide a Quidditch game of that size?"
"Magic of course."
Professor Sprout glanced over to see what Addie had written down on her notepad.
Greenhouse in Seyschelles, Quidditch World Cup, magic?
"They usually achieve such things with anti muggle charms," she told her quietly.
Addie added Anti muggle charms – history, casting, effects and ethics to her list. Oh yes. She was going to spend quite a lot of time in the library figuring any of that out.
"Is there anywhere else you would like to go, Neville?" Addie asked him once she had finished writing down her notes. "I've never been on holiday either, and don't know where I'd go if I did."
"You neither? Well I was thinking that I could maybe go to other places in the UK. I've stayed in the same place for most of my childhood. My family's estate is in Yorkshire, and before coming to Hogwarts, I only went further south than Leeds or further North than Carlisle a couple of times. Gran says I'm..."
"...delicate," Adrian finished. "Has anyone here not been referred to as 'delicate' or 'sensitive'? I swear that it was most of my childhood. My parents still do it as well."
"Erm, I haven't," Addie said, unsteadily.
"Adelaide, from what we've heard about your relatives, they probably refer to you as 'unhinged', 'attention seeking' and 'manipulative'," Adrian replied. When Addie nodded he continued, "Well that's just them creatively reframing your actions to make them feel better."
"I don't think I've talked much about them…"
"You never talk about them, that is true," admitted Cho.
"That doesn't mean that we haven't managed to get a bad impression of them," Neville said fiercely. "From what little you've mentioned, they are monsters."
The others nodded in agreement. Professor Sprout, who was doing marking at her desk nodded as well. "If you were to talk to me in the capacity of head of house, I could see what I could do."
"I think I'm alright Professor," she said dismissively, "but I will keep that in mind. Now, where have you been on holiday?"
"Oh, all over," Professor Sprout exclaimed enthusiastically, preparing herself to regale her captivated audience.