Adjectives

Boyish. Sweet. Nice. Friendly. Those words are all that I am. All that I have been. All that anybody sees of me. Probably, all that I will ever be. And it is most certainly all that anyone expects of me.

But I'm sick of doing what people expect.

I want the spotlight too. Want the fame, the adoring looks, the pretty girls, the fast brooms, and the biting retorts of sarcasm. I want it all, I want everything. I want to belong. I want to be smiled at and feel loved and popular. And I just want to be alone. I want to just start running and never, ever look back at anything. I want to escape those words, Boyish, Sweet, Nice, Friendly, because they've trapped me and defined me for so long that I don't know where the adjectives stop and I start.

I want to- no, I need to be me. I need to know who I am so desperately, sometimes I think I'll drown in all the longing. Of course, I don't, because it's not what's expected of me.

I'm to graduate with modest grades and train to be the next Herbology teacher. I'm to marry a nice witch from a wizarding family of good standing. I'm to take care of Gran and visit Uncle Boris with his cataracts every summer. I'm to be last place and stumble on my own feet and stare about helplessly. I'm to be sane and brave and weak and stupid all at once. I'm to go through life blandly, looking forward to nothing, looking back at everything with a sigh. I'm to never get a girl and never to go out and party and act crazy. I'm to be weighed down by reality and endure the blandness. I'm to be unsure and stepped on and I have to act sweet about it. I'm to keep my mouth shut and stand stoically as my mother hands me yet another gum wrapper. And I'm to go home, run up to my room and cry because of the overwhelming sadness that I feel.

It's what's expected of me.

Oh Merlin...Oh anybody...Some days, I feel so insignificant standing next to Harry, the savior of the world. To Ron, the joker. To Hermione, the genius. Not that I really stand next to them since they look past me like a piece of furniture. Some days I want to scream at them all, the entire House, the entire school and tell them to look at me for who I am. To look at me and see that I'm not really the bumbling loser that they all perceive me to be. To look at me and realize...I've changed.

But those four words define me still, and no one, not even Gran can look past those hateful, cruel adjectives. Because to them, that's all I am.

I need to get out of here. I need to run away. I need to stop this charade of being the Boyish, Sweet, Nice, Friendly, Neville Longbottom. Dumb Neville Longbottom! Retarded Neville Longbottom! Pathetic Neville Longbottom! Neville...who? Who am I? I don't even know. What am I? Nobody knows! Where can I draw the line between perception and reality?

Where do the adjectives stop? I need to know so I can pack up who I really am and leave it all behind.