All alone
As soon as Potterwatch had announced that Lightning had struck, Augusta had grabbed her wand and cloak and prepared to leave the cottage.
‘There will be a fight now,’ she had exclaimed to Trevor, ‘and I am going to fight alongside my grandson. We’ll make Frank and Alice proud!’ and with those final words she had closed the door behind her.
For the first time in his toady existence he was all alone.
He knew that Augusta Longbottom had never considered him family and that Neville had outgrown him to the extent that he had not taken Trevor to Hogwarts with him this year.
‘It won’t be safe for any pets in Hogwarts now that Dumbledore is gone’, he had explained to him, trying to sound both kind an sensible, when he had sensed that Trevor wanted to come with him as usual.
It had broken Trevor’s heart to see Neville leave for Hogwarts without him.
Augusta had kept him up to date of course, maybe not intentionally, but talking to Trevor was preferable to talking to the wall, even though a toad was a far cry from family or even company.
Both his humans had talked to him about all their problems for the best part of sixteen years and now they had just left him at home, all alone with his thoughts and worries.
He did not worry for himself of course, there were plenty of ways he would be able to survive without his humans. But he worried for them.
He worried about Neville, who had grown into a very handsome capable wizard, who was just as good as the famous Harry Potter when it came to magic, and had proved himself worthy of being his parents’ son many times over. Neville had not told his grandmother all the details of the Carrows and their ideas of punishing students. He did not want to upset or worry his grandmother any more than necessary, but he had told Trevor all about the current state of affairs in Hogwarts, the last time he was home.
Trevor also worried about Neville’s grandmother, who would rather die herself than see another member of her family being tortured to death or insanity. He was sure that if she would run into that escaped prisoner Bellatrix Lestrange, that encounter would not end well for the Death Eater.
Trevor knew of course that he would be no use to anyone on a battlefield. Cats could hiss and bite and scratch, owls could fly interference and peck at enemies, in addition to their ability to carry messages, but a toad had none of those defense or attack capabilities, or any other useful attributes, other than being a great listener.
Depressed as he was at the fact that he had been abandoned by his humans, he hoped that he at least had been a source of comfort to them over the past decade and a half, when they needed a friendly ear. Thank Merlin magical toads lived on average five to six years longer than their muggle counterparts, who tended to have a life span of just ten to twelve years.
Sick with fear for both of his humans, he hopped upstairs to Neville’s bedroom and got up onto the bed and nestled himself in the heavy duvet.
There was nothing for him to do, but to wait until one of them came home.
He prayed to every deity under the sun for the safety of both of his humans, as he drifted off to sleep under Neville’s covers, all alone.
The End