Wrapping Paper

Wrapping Paper

She's told him to throw them out a thousand and one times. Or at least it seems like that. He hasn't actually counted. He's never counted the wrappers either. There's a vague idea in his head that it would probably depress him, and he tries not to dwell, even though sometimes he can't help it. His grandmother once said he probably had enough to wallpaper his room.

He doesn't like to remember just when she made that remark.

He admits that she's probably right though. He could paper at least one wall if he really wanted to. Instead, he keeps them in a box that his grandmother thinks he keeps his old schoolbooks and parchments in. In reality, the school things are residing in the attic, because his gran doesn't go up there anymore, and keeps the box of wrappers under his bed. He hates to admit it, but he needs them close to him.

He remembers that time in first year, when he'd tried to stop Harry, Hermione and Ron from going after the Philosopher's Stone, and Hermione had put the full Body-Bind curse on him. He remembers what Dumbledore had said about him at the feast, about how he was brave and courageous because he'd stood up to them, even though it was stupid because as usual they'd been going to save the world. He'd gotten ten points for that, the first house points he'd ever been awarded in his life, and he remembers being overwhelmed with hugs and cheering because it was due to him that Gryffindor had won the House Cup.

He knows that's all rubbish now. He got those points because Dumbledore wanted Gryffindor to win the House Cup. People cheered for him because it had been his points that led Gryffindor to victory. He's sure none of them actually cared who he was or what he'd done. He's not brave. He isn't courageous or strong. He never has been.

If he was, he'd have been able to throw out that box long ago.

But he isn't, and he can't. It's like a heavy metal chain dragging at his heel. He can't bear to get rid of this box yet every time he looks at it, he feels a sharp pain stabbing through his chest that threatens to make him cry and he will not cry.

That's really why he keeps it hidden out of sight under his bed. It's got nothing to do with his grandmother. She's his excuse, but he keeps it hidden because he's scared of the pain it brings him. When he sees it, he's forced to think properly about his parents.

His mother Alice.

His father Frank.

The ones who don't know him.

He remembers his mother as he last saw her, frail and brittle in her pink nightgown, and his father, snoring lightly in his red plaid pyjamas. He'd look almost normal if his hair wasn't thin and wispy and the colour of the pure fresh snow that coated Hogwarts every winter. His mother's hair's the same, and he knows for certain that he doesn't know anyone else whose parents have hair the colour of his parents'.

There's a photo of his mother and father on his desk at his grandmother's house. When he's at school, it lives in the top drawer of his dresser. His mother's hair is blonde, his father's brown. They laugh and joke cheerily and a lot of the time, he can hardly tell that they're his parents. They're young and carefree in this picture, and his mother is beautiful, in a way that only the young and loved can be. His father is smiling and handsome, in the way that the good-hearted and strong always are. Neville calls them Frank and Alice, because his parents are in the long-term patients ward at St Mungo's and these two bright and smiling people are in no way his white-haired and insane parents.

He wishes he could believe that. He knows Frank and Alice are in fact his parents, and it's one of the hundred reasons he's ashamed of who he is. He thinks it would be easier if the white-haired people in pyjamas were his parents, easier if they'd always been like that. But they hadn't; they'd once been Frank and Alice, and they were his parents. He's spent his whole life hearing about Frank and Alice Longbottom and what wonderful people they'd been. They'd been Aurors, good ones - Neville knows that's why they were tortured - and anyone who'd known them (save the Death Eaters they'd imprisoned) had liked them.

His grandmother and other various relatives have told him all about how his father did well at school, and was always very charming and used to get into scrapes as a child. His Aunt Maude's told him the story of how his parents met at least seven times, but he never has the heart to tell her that he's heard it all before. When he was younger, he'd met so many of his parents' school friends that he'd lost count, and every time he'd met a new one, he'd felt like he was letting his parents down by not being the perfect child he should have been. The meetings were always stilted and awkward - he'd never been much socially - and he was always left with a feeling that he was lacking in some way because he'd been nothing like his parents. He imagined it was very disappointing for his parents' old friends who'd expected to meet Neville Longbottom - and had then met Neville Longbottom. He was sure they could quite believe that he was Frank and Alice's son.

When his grandmother used to tell him about all the things his parents had done, he used to not quite believe it either. He's moved on since then, or at least he likes to think he has, but he still thinks that if Frank and Alice woke up one day, suddenly sane, they'd be disappointed with him.

It's not because he's not overly bright, even though he isn't. He does brilliantly in Herbology, and he thinks that would be enough for them. It's not because he's always been a bit of a loner either. He knows that if he needs them, he has friends in Hermione, Ron, Harry, Ginny and possibly even Luna. His parents would probably be exasperated at his forgetfulness and his lack of confidence, like his grandmother, but that wouldn't be a problem.

Frank and Alice Longbottom fought for the side of good and they fought for it well. They were determined and proud and they went down fighting. Neville knows they'd hate what they've become. They were strong and courageous.

Neville is not. This is the problem. He can't kid himself. If he were strong, he'd be able to throw out the box. But he can't. He needs it too much.

He's ashamed of this, because this neediness feels babyish and stupid, and he wonders whether Harry or Ron or Hermione or Ginny or Luna or Frank and Alice would need this box of useless bits of wrapping paper. They're the yardstick that he needs to measure up to, and he feels they wouldn't need it. They aren't that weak. It makes him angry to think that he is, because it makes him feel babyish and stupid and lately, he's realised that he's not either. It's taken him five years to realise it, but he's not a bumbling half-wit. He can do things. He can't brew a potion, but he can grow a Mimbulus Mimbletonia better than anyone except Professor Sprout, and can perform a workable Stunning spell. He's gone up against Death Eaters and he's lived. He knows there are lots of very dead Aurors who can't say that, and he's just Neville Longbottom, the round bumbling idiot who can't even remember which staircase has the sinking step.

Neville knows he's leaving that bumbling kid behind, and he's glad. He needs to grow up, move on.

He wants to throw out the box.

Today he's visiting his parents with his grandmother. His mother's wearing a blue nightdress and his father's wearing blue stripes. As usual, they don't recognise him.

Neville and his grandmother stay for half an hour, like they do every Thursday during the summer holidays, and when they go to leave, his mother fumbles in her dressing gown pocket.

His grandmother sighs. "Go on, Neville," she says as his mother holds out the regular sweet wrapper. "Take it." Then she adds in a stage whisper, "You can throw it out in the hallway."

Neville takes the brightly coloured Chocolate Frog wrapper from his mother's pale spidery hands and looks at her watery blue eyes with their odd, still, staring expression. She doesn't say anything. She never does.

He wants to be strong.

He stares at the sweet wrapper in his hand. Wrapping paper. He doesn't know why he stares though, because as he slips it into his pocket, he knows exactly what he's doing with that sweet wrapper.

He's taking it home and putting it into the box.

He wants to be strong. He really, really does.

But damn, he needs this too much.

-- end