Peculiar Perspectives

Neville Longbottom was… not the biggest fan of his family. He used to be, but then he also used to crave their approval. Deep down he knew they loved him. But, well, you can only have so many “accidents” before you realize that some people would rather you’re dead than not magical.

Neville was raised rather isolated, given the lack of displaying accidental magic. His grandmother and great-uncle Algernon were quite plain when they told him that it wouldn’t be proper for him to see children who were actually magical.

So the family was encouraged to… test him. To try and see if he was really magical, really worth their time. Worth their family name. Great Aunt Enid favored words over action, using cruel words sharp as a blade to see if this latest beratement would push some magic out. Great Uncle Algie preferred physical attempts. A shove off a pier, a tripping foot on a high ledge. And his Gran, the woman who is meant to protect him, lets it happen. Passively watches.

As the years pass, and the attempts get more desperate, Neville grows more and more apathetic. Well, on the inside. It presents more as a relaxed detachment to everyone else, though internally he craves nothing more than to finally feel something other than the crushing nothing.

The tests finally crescendo when Great Uncle Algie dangled him out of a window. On the fourth floor of the townhouse he and Great Aunt Enid lived in. And then, as though his slowly mounting horror had slowed time, Neville watched as Uncle Algie’s hand uncurled, finger by finger until… nothing.

And then he fell.

Neville was certain he was going to die. As he fell, all that flashed before his eyes were the tests that he had been subjected to. And as he fell, he made a choice. If he lived, he would be nothing like his family wanted. He would succeed not because of them, but to spite them.

And he does survive.

Uncle Algie gives him a toad as a “celebration gift”. His wand is Willow wood and phoenix feather. His Gran says she had planned on giving him his father’s wand, but that it would sully his memory, giving it to someone who is so clearly a failure of a wizard.

He makes his first friends on the Hogwarts Express. He only knows who one of them is, but that’s because every Longbottom he’s heard talk about him has spoken disparagingly about his mother. So he sits with them. Because how better to begin his lifelong crusade of spite than befriending the Black Widow’s son, as well as his friends?

That one of them turns out to be Harry Potter is a bonus. His Gran would probably tell him not to befriend the boy, lest he manage to make Harry a worse wizard.

The best part is that, as Harry’s friend, Neville’s finally found that thrill he was looking for, and even better is that, now that he’s no longer around his family, slowly but surely he stops feeling that apathy, and the relaxed affectation becomes just… being relaxed.

When he returns to Viridian Hall that summer, he spends most of it either in the greenhouses or with his friends, avoiding the family members who want to tell him “Oh we knew you’d be a great wizard!” and “Oh we knew you had it in you!” after hearing his grades from his Gran. He’s all too happy when the school year starts up again.

Except this year there are active issues that he and his friends have to deal with. Chiefly, the petrifications going on. And while he helps with the research for that, there’s the other issue, which Neville throws himself at. The Lutin Problem.

Because if there’s one thing that Neville doesn’t like, it’s when others are mistreated or exploited. And the pinnacle of that? The height of oppression, which still allows you to live? Slavery. And if he can, Neville will help free someone, help them escape slavers. It’s an ordeal, making his way through the family library without Gran and Uncle Algie wising up to it.

In the end, his research wound up being helpful, seeing as without it Hermione wouldn’t have managed to figure out which rites had been mangled into the binding placed upon the lutin. Then, of course, there were the runed deer antler fragments that had to be carved concurrently with the forging of the talisman, which he took the lead on.

That summer was one where his Gran tried to restrict the time he spent outside of Viridian Hall, given the escaped convict. But, well, he had been raised in such a way that he knew the hidden passages and routines of his fellow residents as intimately as he knew himself.

It didn’t take long for the reason for his Gran’s behavior to be revealed. The escape of one Sirius Black. It goes unreported the reason for his escape, though Neville suspected it had something to do with Harry, seeing as the major events of years prior had some form of link to him.

He was right, after a fashion. It was less a direct connection, and more an indirect link, seeing as it involved his godfather and a traitorous family friend. A link nonetheless. Then of course there were the feats Harry had performed independently, such as exorcising dementors, or performing illicit soul magic when he was still four years away from graduation.

Their fourth year at Hogwarts was rather more eventful, and yet less at the same time. Harry, of course, had somehow been entered into the Triwizard Tournament. He and the rest of their group help him to prepare in what ways they can while making sure he doesn’t go insane trying to research triplicate artifacts. One of the positives is that Harry finally realizes he and Blaise are dating.

But then they get to the Third Task. And Harry is kidnapped.

He and Luna immediately make their way to the knot of professors that Dumbledore is attempting to direct, at first to get information and then to harass them into doing their jobs and looking after their students. Hermione is unintelligible to his ears, spouting off legalese as she is, and Blaise… Blaise is throwing around death threats.

And then he poisons Moody. So Bagman threatens to arrest him.

He has to run over to physically restrain Blaise, seeing as he’s currently trying to physically assault Bagman. To say the night was going wonderfully would be… well, it could have been worse, Neville thought as Mr. Thompson managed to come back with Harry.

Then the school year is over and he’s being taken somewhere other than Viridian Hall. Instead, he’s being taken to the Weasley’s house, The Burrow. Where he’s met by Dumbledore, who gives him a slip of parchment and apparates him to a London townhouse.

It takes him seeing Hermione to finally calm down, especially when faced with her ranting and raving about being taken to Grimmauld Place, and kidnapping minors.

He was never overly worried about not seeing Harry, seeing as the impossible was rather a specialty of his. So he wasn’t surprised that he made it through a Fidelius charm. Impressed? Absolutely. Considering the impact of a small degree of codependency? Unquestionably.

He was also relatively unconcerned about Harry being put on trial. Now, the cause of the trial, however? He was quite concerned about that. He was even more concerned that their primary suspect was also their Defense professor for the year.

And then the concern is validated.

Because she was torturing children.

So, naturally, they, as a group, begin planning how to deal with her. Blaise was responsible for the incapacitation element, or the potion used for it, at least. Hermione was responsible for the holding area, Luna for ensuring the next potential victim wouldn’t be able to be there. Him? Neville was responsible for helping Harry see the inside of Umbridge’s office.

It was easy, really. All it took was spinning a thread of an idea into a story and question, that “Oh, Madam Umbridge, I didn’t quite understand one of the points in the chapter we read in class, could you explain it please?” and she left her office door open for long enough. He left as soon as he could, ferreting himself away into the greenhouses.

When the Aurors arrived, they had been expecting it. Had expected the interviews, the questioning. What they hadn’t expected was the forensic spell one of them had cast alerting them to her body’s location. And then Neville remembered something about phoenixes.

And then Harry and Blaise are fugitives.

And Neville? He’s thinking about the choices that led him to where he found himself. And he thinks he wouldn’t do anything differently.

Because, really, being friends with wanted murderers is the exact sort of thing his family would hate.

And Neville thinks that that’s beautiful.