Neville's Triumph

Professor Snape swept into the Potions dungeon classroom and slammed the door behind him. He scowled down at the Gryffindor students. He snatched a piece of chalk up from the chalkboard and began to write the ingredients to the potion on the board. His hand was so swift and heavy that chunks of chalk exploded against the board as he wrote. When he finished there was only a nub of chalk left in his hand and he threw it at Neville. Neville ducked and sat stiffly in his chair shaking from fright.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Snape asked indignantly. "Get busy!" He walked around the classroom watching the students madly stir their ingredients into their cauldrons. Neville dropped his cauldron and the ingredients spilled out onto the stone floor. In his frightened surprise, he jumped up turning over the entire worktable, spilling Dean, Seamus, and Hermione's cauldrons as well. There was a loud groan from the four students and a roar of laughter from the rest. Snape swept angrily over to Neville and picked him up by his collar.

"Longbottom, why must you always ruin my classroom? What is it about my dungeon that makes you so accident-prone? Or is it just that you are an idiot?" Snape snarled at Neville. Neville's face was bright red and his eyes were watering. "I asked you a question, Longbottom!" He held Neville up to him so that they were nose to nose.

"B-Because, because y-you s-scare me," Neville croaked. He looked as though he would mess his britches. Snape flipped his greasy hair out of his face with a jerk of his head and his thin lips curled into a sadistic grin.

"Oh. Because I s-s-scare you?" Snape ridiculed. "Get busy and clean up this mess, Longbottom! You will serve detention with me and that will be forty points from Gryffindor, ten points for each spilled cauldron." He set Neville back down on the floor. Neville looked ill. He obediently dropped to his knees and started scrubbing the floor.

"Longbottom! What are you doing now? You fool! Are you a Muggle or a wizard? Get out your wand and clean up this mess, then get back to work with your potion!" Snape yelled. Harry and Ron gave each other looks that said they wanted to kill Snape. Neville stood up and took out his wand. He looked at Hermione for help.

"Er," Neville hesitated. He waved his wand at the floor, but nothing happened. He looked back to Hermione and she gave him a sympathetic look.

"Longbottom, don't tell me you don't know the simple cleaning charm. This is utterly ridiculous." Snape said as the Slytherin students laughed and called out names at Neville, like chump and squib. Neville looked up at Snape and thought of what he just said...ridiculous. He remembered his Defense against the dark arts lesson with Professor Lupin when they were studying boggarts. Suddenly, Neville had his wand pointed directly at Professor Snape.

"What is this, Longbottom? Should I be afraid? After all, you can't even clean my floor with that thing." Snape said as he gestured to the wand.

"R-Riddikulus!" Neville shouted. He looked as surprised as the rest of the class when he saw what had happened to Professor Snape. There he stood in front of the class wearing a tall hat with a stuffed vulture sitting on it, a long green dress with a fox-fur scarf wrapped around his neck, and a big red handbag swinging off his left arm. Snape was so shocked and embarrassed that he turned and ran into his office, locking the door behind him. The classroom filled with laughter and the Gryffindor students all congratulated Neville.

"I thought it only worked with boggarts," Neville said blushing with a satisfied grin on his face.