Rowena's Quill

"For a Gryffindor, I sure am afraid of a lot of things," Neville thought as he tugged at a particularly spunky garden gnome.

The feverish publicity of his escapades at the Department of Mysteries had died down. For a little while at least, Gran had been proud of him. She had actually enjoyed speaking to the reporters and the fuss she made over Dad's broken wand was mild for her standards. But now his O.W.L. results were due, and Gran had returned to her old self. Neville was spending as much time as possible in the garden, avoiding her.

Gran was particularly fixated on his Transfiguration grade, but Neville's the biggest worry by far was Potions. If he was going to accept Mr. Klover's job offer, he needed that O.W.L. And if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that he didn't want to repeat Potions. He didn't think he could bear another year of Snape breathing down his neck, pointing out every little mistake. He'd be placed with the new fifth years - in Ginny's class. Every humiliation Snape had ever heaped on him would seem like child's play compared having it all happen in front of Ginny. He just had to have passed that O.W.L.

"Gotcha!" Neville shouted as he caught hold of the gnome at last. Standing up, he put all his pent-up worry into throwing the little pest far away from the property. Neville's throwing arm was getting stronger. He wished gnome-throwing would make him better at Quidditch.

The owl came from the same direction in which the gnome had just flown. Neville, already damp from the garden work, broke out into a cold sweat. The owl swooped down to him, and with clammy hands and a pounding heart, he removed the envelope from its leg.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades Fail Grades

OUTSTANDING (O) POOR (P)

EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS (E) DREADFUL (D)

ACCEPTABLE (A) TROLL (T)

Neville Franklin Longbottom has achieved:

Astronomy A

Care of Magical Creatures A

Charms E

Defense Against the Dark Arts E

Divination D

Herbology O

History of Magic A

Potions A

Transfiguration A

Neville read and re-read his grades. Eight O.W.L.s! An O in Herbology, and E's in Charms and Defense! And he'd passed Potions! He could hardly believe the grades were his. He ran down the list again.

"Are those your exam results, Neville?" called Gran from inside the house. "Give them here."

Neville had no choice but to obey. He knew Gran would find fault with him for one reason or other, but he could face her better now that he'd seen his grades for himself. Out of suspense, he was out of his misery - or at least the worst of it.

"It's fair, I suppose, but not excellent," said Gran as she looked over the parchment. "Your father got eleven O.W.L.s, all of them O's."

Neville breathed deeply and held himself back from saying, "I'm not Dad." He didn't draw attention to his one 'O' either. As Uncle Algie had said, Gran disliked reminders of how much more he took after Mum than Dad.

"I do hope Minerva will allow you into her N.E.W.T. class with nothing more than an 'Acceptable.'"

"I'll be able to take Charms," said Neville eagerly. "They cover healing spells at N.E.W.T. level. Very basic ones, of course, but - "

"Charms is a soft option. Every respectable wizard is a master at Transfiguration. Your father won the Transfiguration award at graduation, you know."

"Yes, Gran, I know. May I go back to the garden now? It's the height of the season. I've got plenty to harvest. The Muggle basil is up to my knees and the jackaroo mint smells perfect."

"Yes, yes, boy, go."

Neville smiled to himself. Words of praise weren't Gran's style, but she did make extensive use of the herbs he grew for her. In its way, that was praise, too.

A few days later was Neville's birthday, a day they always spent visiting his parents. And since they were to be in London, it worked out to be the most convenient day for buying his replacement wand.

Having "inherited" his father's wand, Neville had never been in Ollivander's store before, though he'd heard all about Dean and Seamus. Both of them described Ollivander as a slightly creepy man, but testing out all the wrong wands and then finding the right one had thrilled each of them. Of course, they were not even first years back then and had never done

magic before. Dean had never even seen magic before. Neville was certain that after having used a wand for five years, getting a new one wouldn't be anything extraordinary. But he was wrong.

"Good morning, Mrs. Longbottom," said Mr. Ollivander when they entered the store. Neville instantly understood what Dean and Seamus had meant about Ollivander's creepiness. How could anyone's memory be so good? Gran probably hadn't shopped there since Dad started school.

"And this must be Neville. I've read about you in the papers, young man."

"Yes, showing some his father's flair after all," boasted Gran.

Mr. Ollivander nodded but did not crack the smallest hint of a smile.

"Whose side is he on?" wondered Neville.

"Neville broke his wand in battle," explained Gran. "And I must say, if we had to lose it at all, that was the best possible way. I would have been devastated had he misplaced it somewhere or broken it in a classroom mistake. It was Frank's wand, you see."

Neville felt his face go warm. Of course, he'd heard Gran say all this before, but that was when they were alone. Now, in front of a complete stranger, she was parading his inadequacies.

Mr. Ollivander looked at Gran steadily. "No two wizards are alike, madam, not even father and son. A wizard using somebody else's wand can never reach his full potential."

"That's why?" thought Neville. All these years, he believed himself to be a second-rate wizard. Perhaps it wasn't true. Perhaps a new wand would make all the difference for him. His opinion of Mr. Ollivander sky-rocketed.

Mr. Ollivander brought down several wands from the shelves, lined them up on the counter, and then brought out a cage of three white mice. Neither Seamus nor Dean had mentioned anything about mice.

As though reading his thoughts, Mr. Ollivander said, "This is how adult wizards determine which wand is best for them."

"He's sixteen, not seventeen," said Gran.

"I realize he's still underage, madam, but he does have several years' magical experience. Now, Neville, this is a twelve inch willow with a dragon heartstring core. Your father had birch and dragon heartstring, so this will feel familiar, but different. Cast any spell you like over these mice and we'll see how it goes."

Neville decided to try transfiguring the mice into toads. He'd worked on small animals that very year, and though his results were always mixed, he felt he had reason to hope for better now. He closed his eyes, thought hard about Trevor, opened his eyes, and cast the spell.

"Hmmm," said Gran, frowning.

One mouse now had green fur, one sprouted a long tongue on which it caught a tiny flea, and the last let out a weird noise that must have been a cross between a croak and a squeak.

"Is Transfiguration your strongest subject?" asked Mr. Ollivander, returning the mice to their normal state.

"No, sir. It's Herbology, actually."

"It doesn't require much wand work," Gran added, but Neville was too jarred by his own choice of words to pay much mind. Since when was he tacking the word "actually" onto the ends of his sentences? He was beginning to sound like Luna Lovegood.

"Cast a spell you've thoroughly mastered," said Mr. Ollivander.

Neville thought of the spells he'd learned in the D.A. He thought of Malfoy, face down and unconscious on the library desk. No, it seemed cruel to stun mice. He thought of Millicent Bulstrode tripping over Warrington. He grinned.

"Impedimentia!" he said over the mice. The mice barely moved.

"Do you normally get good results with the Impediment jinx?" asked Mr. Ollivander.

"Yes, sir."

"Then, try this," he said as they traded wands.

"Cherry wood and unicorn hair. Quite a few herbologists favor cherry wood."

The wand felt warm and comfortable in his hand. Holding Dad's had never been anything like this. Might any of those A's have been E's and O's with the right wand?

"Impedimentia!" he said. The mice squealed as they bumped into each other. For a moment, he was elated, but then he felt a little sorry for the mice. "Aguamenti," he said, refilling their water bottle.

"Your wand has chosen you, young man," said Mr. Ollivander. He smiled for the first time in the conversation.

"Thank you very much, sir," said Neville, offering his hand.

Gran paid for the wand, and as Mr. Ollivander put it in a bag for them, another customer entered the store.

"Dear, dear, it's almost eleven o'clock," said Mr. Ollivander. "I am sorry, sir, but I have an appointment outside very shortly. Could you return in perhaps two hours? I will be happy to assist you then."

Mr. Ollivander closed up shop, and Neville, Gran, and the other man left.

"Nice man, Mr. Ollivander," said Neville as they walked away.

"His wands have an excellent reputation at any rate," Gran sniffed. "Come, Neville, we'll catch the Knight Bus to Mum and Dad."

Mere mention of the impending visit killed Neville's good mood. While Gran complained about the driver's erratic stops and starts, Neville tried cheering himself up with the good news he'd be delivering to Mr. Klover, but he couldn't escape the thought of the familiar gloom that awaited him at the closed ward. Luna Lovegood's words popped into his mind. I'm no expert, of course, but I would guess that when a person is incapacitated the way your parents are, their minds go to a different sort of place, too, not the same as where departed souls go, but perhaps something like it.

"She probably is an expert," thought Neville. "She probably slips in and out of that other place all the time, which is why she's sometimes normal and sometimes . . ."

Suddenly, a bizarre idea struck him. Perhaps he should take Luna along with him on a visit to Mum and Dad, and she could try talking to them. He wouldn't tell Gran, at least not until Luna succeeded. That wouldn't be easy to arrange. He would have to ask the Healers to keep the visit a secret. Asking Luna posed another problem. She could be prickly at times, especially when people implied she was mad. He definitely did not want to hurt her feelings. She was a friend, and a good one, at that. She couldn't help being the way she was any more than Mum and Dad could.

The Healers and nurses on the closed ward always gave Neville and Gran a hearty welcome when they visited, but this time, they almost cheered when they saw them.

"Neville, the big hero!"

"Ten Death Eaters!"

"Come see what we've done to your parents' room!"

And before Neville or his Gran could reply, they were ushered into the room. Dad was lying in bed and Mum was sitting up, repeatedly creasing a gum wrapper or some such thing. Neither seemed to take notice of Neville, Gran, or any of the Healers or nurses. All of that was fairly typical. But the wall on which Mum and Dad's Ministry service awards hung had acquired some new additions. Clippings from The Prophet were up now, too, with Neville's name highlighted in yellow.

"We've put anti-tearing charms on to preserve them," the nurse told them, laying her hand on Mum's shoulder.

"It's a very sweet gesture," said Gran. "What a shame they can't appreciate it."

"Thank you," echoed Neville. As soon as he spoke, his mother sat bolt upright and stared at him with much less of her usual blank expression. "She's slipped back into our world!" thought Neville. He knew just the way to reach her. "May I take Mum down for a walk in the greenhouse?" he asked.

Gran shook her head and the vulture on her hat jerked back and forth furiously. "Off the ward? Neville, you know you can't. Why even suggest it?"

"I . . . I thought she might enjoy it."

The Healers and nurses looked at Neville sorrowfully. Then, all eyes seemed to turn toward Mum.

"It's been quiet on the ward all morning," said a nurse.

"So it has," agreed Healer Anselm.

"It might be worthwhile for one of us to see what Basil Klover's been working on. I doubt those inter-department memos really do his plants justice."

"All right then, Healer Ryan, you go with them," said Healer Anselm.

Healer Ryan smiled and with a light flick of her wand, a wheelchair came rolling forward.

Neville began thanking the staff profusely, but as he watched Healer Ryan help Mum into the wheelchair, he had second thoughts. Mum's face had gone dull again. She didn't have the vaguest idea what was happening.

Neville looked over at Gran who was watching the scene in mild disbelief. Still shaking slightly, the vulture on her hat seemed to nod in agreement with her.

Neville knew he could not back down now. "Be back soon, Gran." He followed Healer Ryan and Mum's wheelchair to the lifts.

The instant they entered the greenhouse, Neville's mood lightened. And much to his relief, the herbologists, who all knew precisely what brought him to St. Mungo's so often, did not say a word about Mum. They focused on the visiting Healer instead.

"To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?" asked Mr. Klover, shaking the Healer's hand.

"Neville here decided we ought to give his Mum a little outing. And I've been meaning to talk to you about those sleep-inducing spider ferns."

"Right this way," said Mr. Klover, leading the Healer a few paces down. Neville wanted to follow, but he wasn't sure if he should. Their conversation was bound to be interesting, but maybe it would seem like he was nosing in. What if they began talking about the private business of some patient? Neville decided to err on the side of caution. He pushed Mum's wheelchair slowly in the opposite direction, naming the different plants for her. As always, she didn't show the slightest glimmer of understanding.

"Here's one I don't recognize," said Neville as they came to a cluster of white-petaled flowers.

"That's probably because Hogwarts will have banned it," said Jasmine, the youngest assistant herbologist. "It provides the scent for Amortentia."

"What's that?" asked Neville.

"Standard love potion. Fascinating the way it works, really. It smells different to every person depending on what attracts them. And these flowers - phoscolia, they're called - are the source of that bit of magic."

"That's so cool!" said Neville.

"Now hang on before you start getting funny ideas. Love potions don't do any good for the giver or the taker. In fact, the only one who benefits from love potions are the sellers. I hear there's a new shop on Diagon Alley that's raking it on love potions."

"Fred and George Weasley's?"

"Yeah, that sounds right," said Jasmine. "Naturally, we grow these for their healing powers, but Basil started a sort of tradition here of growing one for your sweetheart. You see this bluish-white color? That's the color of his wife's hair."

"It grows in the color that the grower likes most?" asked Neville.

"Oh, no. It's not that easy. You have to cultivate it, and give it just the right amount of light. It's a tricky balance. Basil gets this color by bleaching them under full sun and then, to add the bluish tint, he gives them a few hours in moonlight. It took him a while to work it out, too." Jasmine sighed and smoothed her shiny black hair. "Nobody's ever gone to such effort for me. I'll have to assume it's because my color is too hard to imitate."

"Has anyone ever tried red?" Neville blurted out.

"Oooh, got a girlfriend, Neville? What's her name?"

Neville's face went warmer than when Gran embarrassed him at Ollivander's. He must have been redder than Ginny's hair. He was grateful that Mum chose that moment to knock the phoscolia out of their pots.

"Oops!" cried Healer Ryan, apparating over immediately. "No, Alice, you must not touch!"

Mr. Klover apparated a split-second after Healer Ryan.

"I'm so sorry," said Neville.

"That's quite all right. I daresay we're capable of nursing them right back to health." He chuckled, and with a wave of his wand, settled the phoscolia back into their pots. "So, Neville, what have you been up to aside from helping Harry Potter fight Death Eaters? How were your O.W.L.s?"

Neville hadn't envisioned an audience for delivering this news. "Well, I got an 'O' in Herbology."

"Excellent. I wouldn't have expected anything less. And how many O.W.L.s overall?"

"Eight," said Neville. He felt awkward discussing this in front of all these people. Mum was the only family member amongst them, and she didn't understand him anyway. She'd gone back to creasing her gum wrapper. "I got lucky with History. One of the essay questions

was about revolutions in wizarding trade, so I wrote all about how the Mimbulus mimbletonia opened up new markets in the tropics."

"Good boy. And you passed Potions?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then go get your Herbology N.E.W.T., and in two years, we'll be seeing you every day. What do you say Jasmine? How'd you like to have Neville on our staff?"

"Sounds great." Then she whispered something in Mr. Klover's ear. Whatever it was, it made him laugh. He reached into a pot of phoscolia, pulled up some root, and handed it to Neville.

"Jasmine suggests that you might want to try your hand at cultivating one of these little beauties. But you have to promise you won't sell it or bring it to Hogwarts."

"I promise," said Neville.

"And on that note," said Healer Ryan, "I think we ought to call this outing to an end. I think it's been more than enough for your mother."

"Yes, ma'am," agreed Neville.

"I trust we'll see you again this summer," said Mr. Klover.

"I think so, sir," said Neville.

"Good. I want to hear about your success with the phoscolia," said Jasmine, winking. Neville was relieved she didn't say anything more than that.

Once back on the lift, Healer Ryan asked, "Mr. Klover has offered you a job?"

"Well, yeah," said Neville. "It happened last Xmas, but it all depended on whether or not I passed my Potions O.W.L. Oh, and I have to get a N.E.W.T in Herbology. Well, you heard him." Neville knew he was babbling, but it was much easier to talk about this than what was immediately before them - Mum. Part of him wanted to know if the Healer thought the outing had done Mum any good, but when he considered the mess she'd made of the phoscolia, he was pretty sure he could guess the answer.

"Here you are, back at home," Healer Ryan said cheerily as she rolled Mum into her room.

"How was it?" Gran asked anxiously.

"Fine," Healer Ryan and Neville said at the same time.

"Does she mean that?" wondered Neville. "I'm not sure I do."

He and Gran stayed a little while longer. At the end of their visit, Mum gave Neville the gum wrapper, which he secreted into his pocket alongside the phoscolia root. And then he and Gran went home.

"It's been a happy birthday for you, hasn't it Neville?" asked Gran. She didn't often express concerns for his happiness, but Neville knew she had them.

Neville considered the day. He couldn't call it happy. Visiting Mum and Dad was never a happy occasion, though of course it was his duty as their only son. But he thought of his new wand and the phoscolia root, and the friends he had in the Healers and herbologists.

"Yeah, Gran," he said. "I think it was my best birthday ever."