Becoming Neville

Note: The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy for me. I will try my very best to continue with the twice weekly posts, but I can't make any guarantee. I will do everything I can to post at least one new chapter a week. I appreciate your understanding, and I thank everyone for the wonderful reviews!

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The next morning when Harry came down for breakfast, his mood was artificially cheery, as if he were trying to prove that everything was normal. He stuffed his mouth full of toast and loudly said to Neville, "So, today is a visiting day at St. Mungo's, right?"

"Yeah," said Neville, gripping his spoon so tightly, the Black family crest would be imprinted onto his palm. "I've got some Turkish Delight for Gran."

"That's great!" Harry reached across the table for the pitcher of pumpkin juice. "Anyway, I was thinking I don't really need to go. Maybe I'll just stay here at the house while you go."

Remus watched as Harry poured himself a glass, sloshing juice onto the table. "We need to stick together, Harry."

"But I'll be safe at the house. No one can get in."

"Mmmm." Remus pressed his lips together. "The more crucial point is that people can still get out."

"I won't leave!" Harry protested.

"No offense, Harry, but you'll understand that the Order does not consider you to be very trustworthy after your excursion into the city."

"But that was ages ago!"

"Nevertheless, we're all staying together. You and I can visit the tea room," Remus suggested. "We can talk."

Harry suddenly blushed. "Oh. Um. Maybe I'll just take a book."

Neville noticed the tiniest flinch from Remus at that, and he felt a sympathetic anger in response. "Maybe you both should come with me to visit Gran. I'm sure she'd like the company."

Harry added, "No, you go on. I want to finish reading 'The Hobbit' anyway."

Neville shrugged and finished his toast. Soon enough they were on their way to St. Mungo's. He would have liked to talk to Harry about what had happened the previous day, or at least acknowledge it somehow, but they couldn't talk around Remus. All he could do was let it go, and hope that they'd be able to talk about it before too much time had passed. He still really wanted to know what Harry thought about the things Ron had said.

When they arrived in the lobby of St. Mungo's, Harry and Remus bid him good-bye and headed off for the tea room so Neville could conduct his visit alone. As he walked down the hall to his Gran's room, he wondered if Dr. Chatterjee had had the chance to visit his parents yet. She'd said she wouldn't get back to him until the following week, but he was eager to ask his grandmother if she knew anything.

Tucking the box of treats under his arm, he pushed open the door and was greeted by a shriek.

"There's my little boy!" a lavender-haired witch in blue robes squealed, descending on him to pinch his cheeks.

Neville braced himself for the attack and stammered, "Auntie Enid! Uncle Algie! I didn't know you were going to be here."

"It's a surprise, dearie!" Aunt Enid said, pressing his face to her shoulder in a hug. He gave silent thanks that he'd grown tall enough to no longer find his face squeezed between her ample breasts. Many a time he'd feared he'd suffocate before she released him.

"We came down early for your birthday since we can't come next week. Algie is giving a speech at the Society for Retired Arithmancers."

"I'd invite you to come," Uncle Algie boomed, his giant handlebar moustache quivering as he slapped Neville so hard on the back he almost fell over, "but I don't suppose you'd understand a word of it."

"Algie, stop beating the child," Neville's grandmother scolded. She looked at Neville. "Well, come on, boy, what did you bring me?"

Neville dodged his aunt and uncle, and held the box out to his grandmother. "Turkish delight."

Her cheeks wrinkled in a smile. "Oh, that's good. Excellent. Well, let's have it open, then."

He opened the box and handed it around. Aunt Enid settled down in a nearby chair and pulled out a fan of bedraggled raven feathers, fluttering it in her face. "Goodness gracious, it's hot in London! How you must be suffering, Gussie dear."

"Believe me," Neville's grandmother mumbled, her teeth sticky with Turkish delight, "I can't get back to Chipping fast enough."

"Speaking of which," said Algie, "you were just telling us about how your broken -," his eyes cut quickly to Neville, "H-I-P is coming along."

"The boy isn't an idiot, Algie," Gran snapped. "He can spell!"

"Of course," said Algie, his tone patronizing.

"My broken H-I-P is coming along, so they say. Next week they expect me to start walking, though they do insist I use a cane. A cane! Honestly, as if I'm an old woman."

"Oh, do listen to what the mediwizards say," Aunt Enid cautioned, fluttering her fan so hard it shed feathers. "We wouldn't want you to fall and break your other hip as well."

Uncle Algie made a shushing gesture. "Don't worry the boy, Enid!" He turned to Neville and smiled broadly. Neville had long ago learned to tell when his uncle was smiling by the way his moustache twitched. "And you've been staying in London this summer, Neville? Quite an adventure for you, eh?"

Before Neville could say anything, his grandmother interrupted, "He's staying with Harry Potter."

Aunt Enid's fan stopped fluttering, and Uncle Algie's moustache ceased twitching.

"Harry Potter!" Algie exclaimed. "I say! Our Neville, friends with the Boy Who Lived!"

Neville cringed at the epithet.

"They are classmates, you know," his grandmother reminded him.

Aunt Enid trilled, "Neville dear, I do hope you're minding your manners."

"I say!" Algie again exclaimed. "Awfully decent of Potter to take our Neville under his wing and all, eh?"

Neville indulged in a grimace. Everyone always talked around him at family gatherings. He could make as many faces as he liked, and they never noticed.

"I imagine he helps you study," Enid continued. "So kind of him. That must be why you've got such decent marks."

"Indeed!" said Algie. "Why, with Potter helping you, I'd wager you'll even pass an OWL or two. We've been rather worried about those OWLs, haven't we?"

Fan fluttering, Enid hissed, "Algie, don't make the boy nervous!"

"Now Neville, don't be anxious about those OWLs. No one expects you to do very well. You just study hard with Potter this year and do the best you can. We'll love you even if you don't pass a single one."

Neville clenched his teeth tightly together, but as usual was spared from answering by his grandmother.

"Honestly, Algie, can't you keep anything straight? Neville already sat for his OWLs this past year."

Uncle Algie's moustache drooped in confusion. "Did he, now? How old are you again, boy?"

"He'll be sixteen next week," answered Gran.

"Sixteen!" Aunt Enid chirped. "How our little nephew is growing up! Algie dear, fetch his present."

Algie's moustache bounced with excitement. "Ah, yes! You'll like this, boy, I promise you." From behind the door, he retrieved a long package wrapped in paper and held it out. "Go on, take it. At sixteen, you're definitely old enough for it."

Stunned, Neville reached for the package. It was long and thin - in fact, it looked awfully like a broom. His hand closed around what felt like a handle beneath the wrapping paper. Could they have actually given him a broom? Not that he had much use for one. After his first year in Madam Hooch's class, during which he broke bones he didn't even know he had, he had gone to Professor MacGonagall and begged piteously never to take flying lessons again. If his aunt and uncle had indeed bought him a broom, he would never dare to use it. But if it's true that the thought is what counts, then such a gift represented a level of thoughtfulness he'd never known his uncle and aunt to possess.

He turned the package over and over in his hands, too astounded to do anything but gawk at it.

"Oh, do hurry up and open it," Aunt Enid urged. "I'm dying to see the expression on your face!"

With one last glance up at them all, he tore off the wrapper, letting the paper fall to the floor.

It was indeed a broom, but not a Firebolt or a Nimbus 2001, or even a Cleansweep. It was a training broom, the kind little kids played with when they were too young for a real one.

"There you are, my boy!" Uncle Algie cried, clapping his hands in delight. "I daresay you're ready for it. But don't worry, Gussie, our Neville will be safe enough on it. It doesn't fly more than four feet above the ground."

Fan quivering, Aunt Enid chimed in, "You'll be the envy of all the boys at school! And you must be sure to let Harry Potter ride it!"

Neville stared down at the broom in his hands, praying that Gran wouldn't actually insist he take it to school. He didn't know which was worse: the fact that they had given him a toy broom, or the fact that it was probably the only kind of broom he could ride without falling off. Swallowing his disappointment, he dutifully mumbled, "Thank you, Uncle Algie and Aunt Enid."

"Think nothing of it, my dear boy," Algie said, clapping him on the back. "Just remember: no riding it indoors."

Aunt Enid pulled a giant watch out of her pocket and checked the time. "Algie dear, we really must go now if we hope to get home in time for the reception."

"Ah yes. Can't let those old arithmancers get started without us! Gussie dear, do rest easy. No more broken bones!" He kissed her on the cheek, then extended a hand to Neville for a vigorous shake that almost wrenched Neville's arm out of its socket. "Be a good boy, Neville."

Aunt Enid seized him in another bone-crushing squeeze. "Happy birthday, dearest! And do be sure to thank Harry Potter for his hospitality."

A flurry of hand-waving and blown kisses and "bye-byes!" and they were finally gone.

Heaving a deep sigh, Neville collapsed into the chair next to Gran's bed. She handed him the candy box. "Eat one," she commanded.

He fished through the treats and popped one in his mouth while Gran opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out her pipe, settling back against her pillows and lighting it. They sat in silence for a while, Neville chewing on the candy and Gran puffing on her pipe. It was as if both of them needed time to recover from the double cyclone that was Algernon and Enid Longbottom.

Gran smacked her lips around the pipestem. "I had a visit from your Doctor Chatterbug yesterday."

"Chatterjee," Neville corrected.

"Peculiar foreign name." Gran bit down hard on her pipe and grimaced. "She kept calling me 'Mrs. Longfeather.' Very odd person, I'm sure. Driftwood came by afterwards. Raised quite a row about her, he did. Said she was a quack and a huckster and an all-around menace to society. Warned me not to listen to anything she said, that she had no idea what she was talking about, and she ought to have her mediwizard license revoked for gross incompetence."

Neville shrank down in his chair, clutching the box of Turkish delight so tightly the sides crumpled. He should never have started this. Uncle Algie was right: he couldn't understand anything. Whenever he asked his Gran questions about his parents, she told him he didn't need to know about it. Now she was mad at him for causing a fuss, and she'd never let him forget it.

Gran's brow furrowed in a deep scowl as she puffed great clouds of blue pipe smoke out of the corner of her mouth. "You know, that's the first time I've seen Driftwood since he took over care of our Frankie and Alice. He's never in when we come by, they say - too busy. No need for us to meet with him, it's all taken care of." She jabbed her pipe in the air as if aiming to poke someone's eye out. "I told him, I said, 'That Doctor Chatterbug answered more of my questions in the twenty minutes she was here than you have in the last five years.'" She fixed a fierce eye on Neville. "Then he had the nerve to tell me I oughtn't to smoke in hospital."

Neville's heart pounded loudly in his ears, and he forced himself to relax his grip on the box before he mashed the candy into a giant lump of rose-flavored paste.

Gran settled back against her pillows, sucking thoughtfully on her pipe. "It was the right thing you did, Neville, calling that funny doctor. I asked around, and it seems other folks here have a high regard for her. I don't know what she'll be able to do for our Frank and Alice, but --." She sighed. "Anyway, I'm glad you got her."

Neville chewed on his lip, thoroughly flummoxed. It was unheard of for Gran to say he'd done something right. He didn't know how to respond. Normally his conversation with her consisted of, "Sorry, Gran; I forgot, Gran; I'll do better next time, Gran." None of those seemed quite appropriate here, and when in doubt, silence always seemed the wisest course.

She turned and fixed him in her gaze. "You're growing up, boy. Took you long enough, but there's nothing wrong with a late bloomer." Her eyes grew soft, the way he'd seen sometimes when she looked at his parents: affectionate, but with a touch of sadness. "I want to keep you safe, the way I couldn't with Frankie and Alice. But you're going to make your own choices, aren't you, boy?"

Neville just stared back at her, unsure whether he was supposed to answer.

With a little shake, Gran resumed her usual imperious demeanor. "Fetch my handbag, there, Neville. It's on the bureau."

Obediently he set aside the candy box and crossed the room to retrieve the red handbag tucked carefully between several vases of flowers and stacks of paperbacks. He brought it back and handed it to her.

Clamping onto her pipe with her teeth, she rummaged around in the bag and pulled out her coin purse. Neville watched as she counted out ten galleons and held them out to him. "Here. Get yourself to Ollivander's and buy a proper wand for your birthday. It's long past time." As he took the coins from her, she muttered, "Training broom, indeed. I ought to beat Algie over the head with it. Of all the worthless rubbish!"

Neville cradled the coins carefully against his chest. He'd never held so much money in his life. "Gran," he said, "aren't you angry with me for breaking Dad's wand?"

She tilted her gaze up at him. "Whatever for? All these years you've had it, and you never broke it out of clumsiness, did you? Though heaven knows you're all butterfingers with my china. No, if you're going to break your wand, it ought to be while fighting bloody Death Eaters. That's a proper way to break your wand. Frankie would be proud of it. Right proud, indeed."

Neville bowed his head, his nose itching with sudden tears. There could be no higher praise than that.