Chapter 6
Hogwarts: Green Houses: Luna and Neville
Three Earth Days after Vision
Luna hummed to herself as she made her way down to the greenhouse she knew Neville was currently at. Every once and a while reaching up to gently brush her fingertips against Vesper’s scales as the soul bond between the two of them continued to solidify and settle. With her being an underage uninherited Faeling, her bonding into their circle would be easily sealed as soon as their magic met and was claimed. All that was needed to fully seal the bond was a hug or quality time spent together. The soul bond humming between them made Luna feel much more relaxed than she felt before waking up Vesper. She knew for certain now that if she needed any help, she could count on the Beta for support.
Luna drifted away from the greenhouses that were only used for classes, going all the way to the back of the line for the smaller greenhouse that wasn’t numbered like the school ones. It was Professor Sprout’s own personal greenhouse and she had given Neville permission to use it for his own plants when she had seen back in his second year just how deep the boy’s affinity for Herbology was. “How important is this boy to our circle?” Vesper questioned from where his head lay just outside the fabric of Luna’s closed robes, blending in completely with her black robes and Ravenclaw scarf.
Luna simply giggled as she swung the door open carefully and walked in. Professor Sprout’s own personal greenhouse was much smaller than the other ones so it was rather easy to find Neville carefully repotting one of the plants he was growing. “Neville!” Luna exclaimed, smiling her normal daydream smile as she made her way to him. Her head tilted to the left when she saw what plant Neville was working on. Caeruleis Rosis Repens, otherwise known as Creeping Blue Roses, were not native to Britain. In fact, they weren’t even native to the Earth Realm. Instead, they were a plant native to Luna’s home Realm, the Fae Realm. Luna knew from her visions that his grandma, Dowager Augusta Longbottom, was a dryad and also came from the Fae Realm, but she didn’t think the woman would be so careless as to let her grandson bring seeds of the plant from there to Hogwarts of all places. It wasn’t safe. Though… Perhaps Neville’s grandmother trusted Dumbledore too much.
With a frown, Luna reached into her bag and gently touched the letter meant for Dowager Longbottom. When anyone that wasn’t an animal touched it now, the conversation that Luna overheard Dumbledore and Snape having about Neville being their backup plan to destroy Voldemort would show. Knowing what she did about Dowager Longbottom, Luna knew she wouldn’t allow either of them to use her grandson that way. Especially not when the old dryad still blamed the Headmaster for what happened to her son.
Neville jumped at Luna’s voice, turning around with a surprised, startled expression on his face. “Luna! What are you doing here?” He asked, grinning up at the Faeling.
Luna smiled back serenely as she sat down on the bench Neville’s blue roses sat upon. “I know you have been worrying about Harry so much that you’ve taken to spending more time in the greenhouses than you normally do.” Luna stated, absentmindedly kicking her feet as she looked over at the plant. It had been so long since the last time Luna had visited the Feywild, where that particular plant grew wherever it pleased. She hadn’t been since the death of her mother when they had gone for the funeral the Queen of the Light Fae held for Pandora. After that, Luna and her father had been told that their mission was of utmost importance and they would not be able to travel back and forth between the Fae Realm and Earth’s any longer. At least, not unless there was an emergency. Luna truly missed dancing through the Feywild with her soul bonded, Rolf, guarding her. And her heart ached fiercely as she remembered her first soul bonded who she hadn’t seen in so long. She missed Rolf dearly, but if everything went according to the Sisters of Fates plan, she’d see him soon enough and he’d join their circle-not-circle. Luna had an inkling that Draco would be absolutely besotted with Rolf, and vice-versa.
“Have you heard from him?” Neville asked, his head snapping up to look at her with wide, desperate eyes.
The Potter Family and the Longbottom Family had a long standing bond between the two. One of the Lord, the Potters, and the Vassal, the Longbottoms. Neville had grown up knowing that he would follow Harry Potter into any trouble he got into, but when he had gotten to Hogwarts things had taken a different turn. Harry barely even looked at Neville, and his two ex-friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, had completely monopolized his time, keeping Harry isolated from everyone else at Hogwarts. Since Neville came from the vassal family, he was always supposed to follow Harry’s lead. The only time he hadn’t was back in their First Year when he had tried to stop Harry from leaving Gryffindor Tower in the middle of the night, only to end up being petrified by Hermione. Harry talked the two into getting him up on the sofa but otherwise he hadn’t said anything about what Hermione did so Neville hadn’t stepped out of line again after that.
Thing had gotten better between the two last year. Harry’s friendship, though Neville wasn’t sure he should call it that, with the other two Gryffindors had been completely destroyed due to the events of Fourth Year, but Harry had still yet to acknowledge the bond between their families, and at this point Neville was convinced that Harry didn’t even know anything about his lordship and the fidelity pledge to the Potters made by the Longbottom Clan. A couple months into Fifth Year Harry seemed to be learning about the wixen world more. He was no longer asking stupid questions or getting into screaming matches that sometimes turned physical with Malfoy, but with how often Harry disappeared, Neville had been unable to talk to him about any of it.
“Harry is fine, Nevs, he is somewhere a lot safer than Hogwarts.” Luna replied, turning her gaze to look back at the older boy noticing the changes he had gone through over the summer. Long gone was the chubby, insecure boy Luna had befriended in her first year at Hogwarts. In his place was a fit young man with a chiseled jawline, messy blonde hair, and golden eyes. Luna’s eyes darted to the bracelet on his wrist and smiled. It was a suppression cuff, often used by anyone with a creature inheritance to keep others from finding out. From her visions, Luna knew that Neville was a half-dragel, half-dryad. She thought he looked absolutely breathtaking with his antlers, but Luna resigned herself knowing it would be a while until she could see them in person.
Shaking her head, Luna reached into her bag and pulled out the letter. “I have a letter for your grandmother. It’s from someone we are both acquainted to so if you could please make sure she gets it immediately, I would be very grateful. I would send it on my own but my mail is being watched carefully at the moment and I don’t want someone to slip in something they shouldn’t.” Luna told him honesty. She was still livid having seen the letter Dumbledore managed to slip into the bundle of letters from her, Fred, George, and their Slytherin trio. She supposed she was glad that the magic of the World Tree stopped the tracking spell Dumbledore had placed on Theo’s bird to keep from showing where Harry truly was. It instead showed that Harry was in the Florida Keys. Perhaps that was why the timeline changed and they only had eleven days before Dumbledore took more drastic measures.
“What are you talking about, Lunagirl? Hogwarts is the safest place on Earth. And why would your mail be being watched? Umbridge no longer works here.” Neville sighed his questions but reached up and grabbed the letter and froze.
Luna smiled sadly knowing he was seeing the memory she imprinted on the letter to get Dowager Longbottom’s attention if the seal of the Light Fae Queen wasn’t enough. She knew he would see it when he touched it, and also knew how important it was for him to see it, to know the danger he and Harry were both in. Luna did feel the slightest bit of guilt for using the bond of Lord and Vassal between Harry and Neville against him to get her to follow her to Harry’s aid. But she also knew how important the newly inherited Beta would be for their circle-to-be. The only real question she had was which of the two submissives would end up bonding to him, or if Neville would end up taking a different position in their circle. Only time could tell though, seeing how Lady Fate hadn’t granted her that information in her visions.
“Luna!” Neville cried, tears in his eyes as he was released from the memory. “What was that?”
“A conversation I overheard between Dumbledore and Snape. Things are very difficult to explain right now, Neville, and the greenhouse isn’t a safe place to discuss it.” Luna glanced around the small greenhouse. Sure, they could have the conversation here since it was one of the few places in Hogwarts that Dumbledore didn’t have a portrait to spy on, but even still the walls had ears at Hogwarts. Anyone could overhear them and go straight to the half-Torvak. “Right now you need to get that letter to your grandmother before Dumbledore comes back to Hogwarts. If you want to learn more, meet by the One Eyed Witch Statue after curfew. We will meet with some like minded people who have Harry’s best interests in mind. Though I should warn you, they aren’t all who you might expect.” Luna smiled at him before jumping off the bench and heading out of the greenhouse, ignoring how Neville called out to her wanting a better explanation.
“Now to call the others to a meeting tonight.” Luna hummed quietly to herself, forcing her typical daydream smile on her face as she headed towards the castle and where she knew the Weasley Twins were. She didn’t have to tell the Slytherin Trio since they were living in the Founder’s Tower since the vipers nest was too dangerous for them.
“That boy is a Beta. Is he important to our circle?” Vesper spoke up a bit confused. He wasn’t upset at the thought of another Beta in their circle-not-circle, there were two submissives so it was inevitable, but he didn’t seem to know anything about their ferros submissive.
Luna just giggled as she once again ran her fingers against the scales of the changeling Beta. A vision danced in her mind of Dowager Longbottom receiving the letter and moving on the advice of her Queen. Her smile grew just slightly. Everything was going according to Lady Fate’s plan.
Hogwarts: Founder’s Tower : Neville and the Misfits
Three Earth Days after Vision, Nighttime
“You aren’t leading me here to kill me, are you Lunagirl?” Neville joked quietly as he followed as the Faeling led him through Hogwarts towards one of the areas that was strictly off-limits to students and professors both. The reasoning they had been given for it was that this side of Hogwarts was structurally damaged and a safety hazard so it was walled off with a single door covered in runes to keep people out. But not only had Luna easily managed to get into a heavily secured area, but the place looked even better than the rest of the castle. It looked like the house elves of Hogwarts actually did the upkeep around here, instead of Flinch who was a squib and couldn’t do magic to fix the damages, or Hagrid who was expelled from Hogwarts when he was younger and couldn’t use magic either. It made Neville wonder what the real reason for blocking off this side of the castle was, because his grounding earth magic told him it wasn’t structurally unsafe.
“If I wanted to kill you, there are so many easier ways of doing so, Neville.” Luna laughed her bell-like laugh smiling at him. It was her true smile, one that didn’t have the dreamy glaze to her eyes to fool everyone into thinking that all she was, was an insane little girl who wasn’t all there in the head. Neville gaped at her for a moment before smiling back. “We are meeting the other Misfits.”
“Misfits? That’s what He called you, Fred and George, isn’t it? If we are meeting up with them, why are we here?” Neville inquired, curiously.
The ‘he’ Neville was referring to was Dumbledore. After seeing what Luna overheard, the plans that Dumbledore and Snape had for him, and more importantly Harry, Neville had been livid. He always knew the slimy snake Snape could not be trusted and he feared the Potions Professor, but Neville had grown up looking up to Headmaster Dumbledore. He was always coming around the Longbottom Manor when he was young, strangely enough only when his Great Uncle Algie was watching him and his grandmother was away. Those two were always whispering behind his grandmother’s back, but even so Neville hadn’t thought much about it. But knowing that he was only seen as a pawn in Dumbledore’s plans had him questioning many things. Like how Uncle Algie would only put him in dangerous situations to activate his magic directly after Dumbledore’s visits.
“Us three, and three others Fred, George, and Harry can’t be seen interacting with each other, without causing everything to fall to pieces around us.” Luna stated, relaxing as the familiar halls and ambient magic of Hogwarts reached out and hugged her and Vesper, like a parent welcoming them back home.
“Slytherins then?” Neville asked. He was always more observant than others thought he was. A side effect of being the Gryffindor everyone thought should have been a Hufflepuff. He had noticed the lack of fire in the fights between Harry and Malfoy last year. In fact, he had thought it looked more like two friends who teased each other relentlessly halfway through fifth year than the toxic rivalry it was known for. He wouldn’t be shocked if Draco was one of the Misfits, though he would want to know how that all came about. Luna simply hummed, grinning at him with amusement before skipping down the hall forcing Neville to chase after her.
Soon enough the two of them came up to a painting on the wall which had five magical creatures moving around in front of a painted Hogwarts near the Black Lake. The first Neville recognized was the Basilisk with flashing green eyes as it playfully glared up at a Phoenix flying overhead. Next was the Thunderbird that flashed between the two creatures leaving a thunderstorm in its wake. One the ground were two others. One was a kelpie that seemed to be having the time of its life jumping out of the water of the Black Lake, and the last one laying closest to Hogwarts was a large, but lithe form of a dragon with abyssal black scales and brilliant amber-red eyes watching the others with amusement.
“Hello, lovelies.” Luna cooed at the painting. In unison, all five creatures turned to look at her before the painting swung open inwardly showing a short hallway before the room beyond it.
Neville didn’t hesitate following Luna into the room. The room was medium sized and looked like an intimate living room. Not so small that all the furniture was scrunched up against one another, but also not as large as the Gryffindor Common Room. There was an ornate fireplace made of this beautiful black granite that had specks of white and purples, making it seem like the night sky. The walls were painted a deep purple color with silver crown moldings with carvings of various magic creatures on them. On the dark oak floors laid an elaborate blue rug with vintage sofas and chairs sitting on and around it. The longer sofa was in a deep green, with the love seat across from it was a deep ruby red, and the two throne-back chairs were in a lovely pale yellow hue. All in all the room was beautiful, if a bit odd because of the random color scheme.
Hanging on the wall above the fireplace was a portrait with five people in it, sitting on and around the green sofa letting Neville know it had been painted in this very room. His eyes widened when he noticed who was in the painting. Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin, who were sitting along with a male in the center of the portrait. The male Neville didn’t recognize had curly black hair and the same amber-red eyes of the dragon that was painted outside the room. Neville barely even noted that there were five doors leading to other rooms, too busy staring at the portrait with the smiling founders of Hogwarts observing him back.
“Neville, meet the five founders of Hogwarts. Rowena, Salazar, Helga, Godric, Blythe, please meet Neville. He’s a very good friend of Harry’s.” Luna didn’t seem to care about Neville’s inner shock and panic as she dragged him towards the lit fireplace. “One of ours, assuming he agrees to come with us.” She looked from Blythe’s knowing smile to Neville who still stood staring agape at the founders.
“Looks like Godric got his tongue, Lunagirl.” Salazar smirked at Neville before looking back at the Faeling. “But more importantly, where is our son?”
Neville looked at Luna confused as the girl giggled before pulling a snake from around her neck, setting it on one of the pale yellow throne chairs. Neville jumped back, his wand coming to his hand, when the snake started to change until a male with deadly pale skin, pure black hair and deep purple eyes was in its place. Despite the suppression bracelet on his hand, Neville growled pulling Luna behind him as his golden eyes alit with magic.
“Nevs, calm down. This is Vesper Hogarth, the only full circle child of the founders. He’s Harry’s. He’s mine.” Luna said putting a hand on Neville’s wand arm and pushing it down until the wand was pointed at the floors instead of her soul bonded Beta. Neville turned slightly to stare at Luna with disbelief in his eyes.
“What do you mean he is Harry’s? Harry isn’t a dragel.” Neville protested. Out of anyone in Hogwarts, Neville could say he knew Harry’s lineage the best. It was the only important one he had to study before going to Hogwarts as a member of the vassal family. The Potter’s didn’t have any creature blood in them, and Harry’s mom Lily was a muggleborn and therefore couldn’t have had creature blood in her.
“I would also like to know what you mean by him being Harry’s, but you are wrong on the second part Longbottom.” The haughty voice of Draco Malfoy sounded from behind them as the sixth year Slytherin came out of the room with a dark green door. Behind him were the two other Slytherins in the group, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini. None of the three had been in the Great Hall for dinner, but Neville honestly couldn’t remember the Slytherin Trio even being in the room after the first night back for any meals. Not that he could blame them for getting food elsewhere. The hostility that the others of Slytherin House seemed to hold for the group of three since the start of the year was obvious to the entire school. Lines had been drawn in the sand between two sides of the war, and surprisingly those three had chosen to side with the Light. Or at the very least they had turned neutral.
“He’s ours. I’m not sure how else you want me to explain that, Dragon.” Luna giggled again, sidestepping Neville to pull the three Slytherin’s into a hug.
Neville subtly scented the air and was shocked to find out that the Slytherin’s were also dragels, and even more so that Draco was a submissive. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that Malfoy of all people would be a submissive dragel. A veela, perhaps, since that was the creature bloodline that was prevalent in the Malfoy family, but never a dragel.
“We should have figured it was Nev you were talking about when you said you found another one of ours.” Fred laughed as he and George entered the Founder’s Tower. Neville relaxed unconsciously as he turned to see the redheaded twin terrors with wide grins on their faces. They waved to the Slytherin Trio with a fond familiarity that only came from a good friendship and that allowed him to relax more.
“But who exactly is this gorgeous specimen?” George asked, easily brushing past Neville to attach himself to the black haired male’s arms looking him up and down with obvious interest. Fred was quick to follow his lead, grabbing Vesper’s other arm.
“We approve!” They exclaimed together, their grins somehow growing. “Very much so.” They all but purred.
Luna laughed at the confused pout on Vesper’s face before clapping her hands together. “Let’s get down to business. Neville needs to be caught up to speed so he can make an informed decision.” The smile fell off her face, being replaced by a serious expression that Neville had never seen on the younger girl before.
Neville swallowed hard as he sat down on one of the throne chairs, watching Fred and George pull Vesper to sit on the loveseat. Draco, Theo and Blaise, curled up on the sofa, and Luna sat down in the other throne chair. It was a lovely sight to see but something inside Neville ached knowing that Harry should be here with them but wasn’t. He would just have to trust Luna was right when she said he was somewhere safer than Hogwarts.
It was quiet for a couple of minutes as Luna contemplated where to start the story. “Well, Neville, you know how Ronald and Hermione treated Harry back in Fourth Year when they thought he had put his name in the Goblet of Fire.” Luna started. Neville immediately nodded. “Right before the First Task was when I officially met Harry. I was pulled to him when he was having a panic attack after learning about having to fight against a dragon. I sat with him and calmed him down.”
“Despite what Prissy Hermione and Ronald keep claiming,”
“-neither of them helped Harry during the tournament.”
“Ronald knew that the first task was dragons because all of us talked to Charlie when he arrived.”
“We gave him a day to get off his high horse and tell Harry but when he didn’t, we told him.” The twins spoke, finishing each other's sentences. Neville grumbled unhappily at that knowledge.
“And I was the one who told Harry that dragons can understand parseltongue and how to get a dragon to back down so he could grab the egg without putting his life at risk. Hermione had told him that he should learn Accio to summon his broom which could have killed him.” Luna growled as she remembered the satisfied look on Hermione’s face after that. No doubt Dumbledore had told her to get Harry to use that plan. She was just glad she put a stop to it. “After that, Fred, George, and I worked with Harry the rest of that year to learn spells and other magics that could help him in the tournament.”
“And I helped him get gillyweed for the second task.” Neville supplied. He hadn’t cared that he had to break into Snape’s personal potions ingredients to get the gillyweed. All that mattered was that Harry needed it to survive the second task so he got it. And he had never been caught as the one to do it either.
Luna nodded. “We all know what happened after the third task.” Luna frowned heavily. She didn’t know Cedric Diggory all that much but his death had hurt Harry significantly. It had taken all Fred, George, and her efforts to break him of the survivors' guilt he felt during their last school year. “Harry was sent back to the Dursleys and He put up wards that stopped all owls from making it to him.”
“Harry came back to us an angry, heartbroken, mess towards the end of summer.” Fred added, a pained look on his face as he leaned into Vesper for comfort.
“Us, his godfather, and Remus had all tried to send him owls with food and drink included to help since we know how badly the Dursleys treat him during the summer.” George continued.
“But Hermione and Ronald didn’t because Dumbledore said not to.” The twins said together with a pain whine that was answered with a reassuring rumble from Vesper and Neville.
“So that’s why Harry asked me if I tried to owl him over the summer on the train?” Neville questioned. He had been confused why Harry looked so desperate when he asked the question but Neville had answered honestly, that he had sent a few owls that always came back. At the time, Neville had thought that Harry was purposely avoiding him. They may have grown a bit closer after the second task but not that close.
Luna nodded solemnly. “Ronald and Hermione thought that they could weasel their way back into Harry’s life without even apologizing and Dumbledore encouraged Harry to make up with his friends because ‘Everyone makes mistakes, my dear boy, you should learn how to forgive and forget.’” Luna sneered out what Dumbledore had told Harry. “Obviously he didn’t. And after we found out that we wouldn’t be able to perform magic in DADA, the four of us decided we would learn in secret.”
“Which is where we come in.” Draco spoke up. Neville blinked as he looked down and saw Draco sitting at his feet leaning against his leg. He hadn’t even noticed the submissive dragel had gotten up from his seat between Theodore and Blaise and moved to him. Something settled in Neville seeing the submissive leaning against him for support. “Theo, Blaise and I came across them doing spell work in the dungeons, and Theo convinced me it would be better to use Harry to keep up our own grades then to turn them in.” The blonde fake-glared at Theo who simply laughed and shook his head.
“A month later, Luna showed us how to get to the Founder’s Tower, and we started having all our Misfit meetings here. It was somewhere safe and out of Dumbledore's watchful eye. That was how we kept Harry safe. The Headmaster tried multiple times to get Harry alone but we informed him that he wasn’t allowed to meet with the Headmaster alone so Harry always made sure to go to Flitwick or Sprout whenever he was summoned.” Theo added. When they had heard he had several meetings with Dumbledore alone over the years, alarms had rang in their head. Students were only supposed to meet with the Headmaster if a parent or guardian was called in, and since Harry’s parents were dead and his guardians muggle, there was no way they were brought to Hogwarts. The next best thing was having one of the Head of Houses sit in on the meeting to make sure nothing inappropriate happened. It had taken the other Misfits two whole weeks to convince Harry to go to Flitwick or Sprout since they all knew how much McGonagall was in Dumbledore’s pocket. None of them would be shocked if they learned that she was in cahoots with Dumbledore and Snape as well.
“And this year? Where is Harry?” Neville asked, reaching his hand down to gently play with Draco’s hair. The submissive purred and leaned back into his hand, and both of them missed the knowing glances the others in the room sent their way.
“Harry went through a dragel inheritance over the summer. His uncle almost beat him to death after seeing him in his halfling form and then dumped him in a forest to get rid of him. He is fine, his magic healed him, but he’s a ferros submissive now.” Luna said with a heavy sigh. “I can’t tell you where he is but I am making plans to get all of us safely out of Hogwarts and to him. We have to leave eleven days from now or else everything will fail and Dumbledore will get his hands on Harry.”
Neville frowned at that before nodding firmly, determination set in his eyes. “Just tell me what I need to do and I will do it. I’m coming with you.” He told them. Everyone in the room smiled at that. They were glad to have the beta join them in their circle-not-circle.
Luna relaxed back in her seat, glancing up at Blythe who nodded her head before motioning to the founders to leave the portrait. Two steps down, several more to go, but as of now things were moving according to plan. Luna could only hope it stayed that way.