birthday FIC for dorrie6
Okay, dorrie6. Here is how it goes: I'd thought that for your birthday I'd write you a drabble inspired by the Mood Beans that you and jacito were doing. So, I wrote down a bunch of character names, a bunch of moods and drew one from each pile.
The result was: Neville. Hopeful. But this? Uh, ended up a little longer than a drabble. Also, unbeta'ed and kind of strange. I can't really judge anymore as I have lost my brain.
Happy birthday, my friend. ♥
Bibbed Egg Owls, Lot Mourns
Neville, rated G, ~1090 words
~for dorrie6 ♥
~*~*~
BIBBED EGG OWLS, LOT MOURNS
It had to mean something.
The day the idea came to him it felt like a great triumph. At lunchtime, Hermione had been talking about the study of anagrams that they'd put to use in Arithmancy to determine patterns within the frogmatulation of the cheeves, or something like that. Neville often felt like Hermione spoke in a different language anyway, so when she said things that sounded like they could be words, he didn't bother listening beyond that. He'd made the mistake once of asking what a "Feather Drill" was, only to be terribly embarrassed later when he realized that she'd actually said, "Pheasant Quill."
It was really better to just let things go, he thought.
The idea of anagrams hit him hard, though. Their next class was Potions and Neville had completely ignored Professor Snape's lecture, appearing to write notes as he furiously tried to rearrange the letters into something meaningful. There had to be something in it. A clue, a mystery, something to tell him that his mother wasn't just... There just had to be.
She couldn't have been giving them to him for no reason.
His first attempt (BROODLES BETS GLOWINB MUG) had been only to rearrange the letters within the words themselves, but then they made no sense. He did keep trying, though. It made sense, somehow -- it made sense to him in the way that plants and soil and growth made sense.
Clearly, he just hadn't found the right anagram.
~*~*~
OSTENSIBLE BOWL DUMB GROG
Neville's pack was one his Uncle Algie had given him after his eleventh birthday, upon which he'd received the letter from Hogwarts. Uncle Algie had come over one Thursday and said he was going to get Neville something of which his father would have been jealous.
They went into the center of town, to Lycoris and Son's Leather, and his uncle had said, "You need a bag for school. Your father always said that his son would have a bag to keep him well-organized, because he certainly hadn't been when he was in school." Uncle Algie trailed off, looking skyward for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gruff, "Just... you're going to make him proud."
The bag is dark brown leather and has several compartments. It's his private pride and joy because he worried that if anyone knew how much he loved it, someone (probably Malfoy) would do something awful to it. After he started scribbling anagrams, they had all ended up in the back compartment of his bag, one he'd always saved for something special.
If this isn't special, he doesn't know what is.
Plus, the idea that he might throw away something that could prove important later worries him more than he is willing to admit. So, his bag just gets more and more stuffed with the leaves of parchment he accumulates like dust. His skin is so dry from touching parchment all the time and the parchment slices little cuts into his skin when he digs in to add more discarded anagrams to the melee.
He doesn't heal them. They feel like a settlement to him, somehow. An exchange of sorts.
~*~*~
BESTUBBLED LINGO GO WORMS
Well. That one is just stupid. Neville crosses it out as soon as he writes it.
BLUBBERED GOING SLOWS TOM
Wasn't You-Know-Who's real name Tom -- maybe it's like... No. That's not it, either.
BESTSELLING BOOB WORD MUG
Neville doesn't throw that one out because "word mug" just makes sense. He thinks, It's kind of like what I'm doing anyway.
But it's not a clue. And, the good thing is, if any of the other boys see it, he can just point out the word "boob" and giggle and no one will bother him about the rest of his parchment.
BURDENSOME BOWL LOST BIG G
This one has the problems his earliest ones had. It really doesn't work at all because he can't quite fit all the letters in when he wanted them.
Though, he is becoming faster now. He can generate two or three while in the shower -- he can do it mentally now. Before, he'd had to use the soap to trace letters on the tiles and then Dean yelled at him to, Hurry up, slowpoke.
Now he is the fastest of the lot in the shower because the letters sort of swim behind his eyelids. He can wash and think at the same time and when he comes up with something promising, he hurries back to his bedside table to write it down.
The other boys keep odd things in their bedside tables. Ron has chocolate frogs and other assorted sweets, Seamus has a handful of four-leaf clovers and a slingshot, Dean keeps his sketchbook there, and Harry has some old looking mirror, but Neville's is, by far, the most interesting.
When the compartment in his pack was full, he'd transfered the leaves of parchment to this drawer. Though, he did resize them first. Flitwick had actually been impressed at how quickly he took to sizing charms. Neville didn't say anything, but he knew why. Like the D.A. last year, when he had a reason to learn something, he usually could.
He has two shrunken piles in the drawer now: the wrappers from his mum to keep for other clues and the pile of discarded anagrams from the gum-stained letters next to them.
~*~*~
GROUNDSWELL BOMB SITE BOG
This one feels like it has promise; it feels like he's onto a clue somehow. Maybe the stories he's been told are wrong. Maybe his parents hadn't been tortured; maybe it had been an explosion of some sort that addled their brains and they just needed the right Healing spell to snap them out of it.
Sometimes he thinks that if he can just be quicker -- if he can just come up with more -- than it would all make sense somehow. The mystery would be solved and he could stop being clumsy and stop feeling like a horrendous misfit and stop being teased about everything by everybody. Then he could stand up to Professor Snape and tell him to back off and Neville would finally stop feeling like a bloody coward most of the time.
But, really, he doesn't have time to think about all of that anymore. He has work to do. It has to mean something, he tells himself as he keeps going, the stale air of the library settling around him, It just has to.
~*~*~
thank you for reading! ♥
Happy Birthday, sweetie. *heart*
The result was: Neville. Hopeful. But this? Uh, ended up a little longer than a drabble. Also, unbeta'ed and kind of strange. I can't really judge anymore as I have lost my brain.
Happy birthday, my friend. ♥
Bibbed Egg Owls, Lot Mourns
Neville, rated G, ~1090 words
~for dorrie6 ♥
~*~*~
BIBBED EGG OWLS, LOT MOURNS
It had to mean something.
The day the idea came to him it felt like a great triumph. At lunchtime, Hermione had been talking about the study of anagrams that they'd put to use in Arithmancy to determine patterns within the frogmatulation of the cheeves, or something like that. Neville often felt like Hermione spoke in a different language anyway, so when she said things that sounded like they could be words, he didn't bother listening beyond that. He'd made the mistake once of asking what a "Feather Drill" was, only to be terribly embarrassed later when he realized that she'd actually said, "Pheasant Quill."
It was really better to just let things go, he thought.
The idea of anagrams hit him hard, though. Their next class was Potions and Neville had completely ignored Professor Snape's lecture, appearing to write notes as he furiously tried to rearrange the letters into something meaningful. There had to be something in it. A clue, a mystery, something to tell him that his mother wasn't just... There just had to be.
She couldn't have been giving them to him for no reason.
His first attempt (BROODLES BETS GLOWINB MUG) had been only to rearrange the letters within the words themselves, but then they made no sense. He did keep trying, though. It made sense, somehow -- it made sense to him in the way that plants and soil and growth made sense.
Clearly, he just hadn't found the right anagram.
~*~*~
OSTENSIBLE BOWL DUMB GROG
Neville's pack was one his Uncle Algie had given him after his eleventh birthday, upon which he'd received the letter from Hogwarts. Uncle Algie had come over one Thursday and said he was going to get Neville something of which his father would have been jealous.
They went into the center of town, to Lycoris and Son's Leather, and his uncle had said, "You need a bag for school. Your father always said that his son would have a bag to keep him well-organized, because he certainly hadn't been when he was in school." Uncle Algie trailed off, looking skyward for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gruff, "Just... you're going to make him proud."
The bag is dark brown leather and has several compartments. It's his private pride and joy because he worried that if anyone knew how much he loved it, someone (probably Malfoy) would do something awful to it. After he started scribbling anagrams, they had all ended up in the back compartment of his bag, one he'd always saved for something special.
If this isn't special, he doesn't know what is.
Plus, the idea that he might throw away something that could prove important later worries him more than he is willing to admit. So, his bag just gets more and more stuffed with the leaves of parchment he accumulates like dust. His skin is so dry from touching parchment all the time and the parchment slices little cuts into his skin when he digs in to add more discarded anagrams to the melee.
He doesn't heal them. They feel like a settlement to him, somehow. An exchange of sorts.
~*~*~
BESTUBBLED LINGO GO WORMS
Well. That one is just stupid. Neville crosses it out as soon as he writes it.
BLUBBERED GOING SLOWS TOM
Wasn't You-Know-Who's real name Tom -- maybe it's like... No. That's not it, either.
BESTSELLING BOOB WORD MUG
Neville doesn't throw that one out because "word mug" just makes sense. He thinks, It's kind of like what I'm doing anyway.
But it's not a clue. And, the good thing is, if any of the other boys see it, he can just point out the word "boob" and giggle and no one will bother him about the rest of his parchment.
BURDENSOME BOWL LOST BIG G
This one has the problems his earliest ones had. It really doesn't work at all because he can't quite fit all the letters in when he wanted them.
Though, he is becoming faster now. He can generate two or three while in the shower -- he can do it mentally now. Before, he'd had to use the soap to trace letters on the tiles and then Dean yelled at him to, Hurry up, slowpoke.
Now he is the fastest of the lot in the shower because the letters sort of swim behind his eyelids. He can wash and think at the same time and when he comes up with something promising, he hurries back to his bedside table to write it down.
The other boys keep odd things in their bedside tables. Ron has chocolate frogs and other assorted sweets, Seamus has a handful of four-leaf clovers and a slingshot, Dean keeps his sketchbook there, and Harry has some old looking mirror, but Neville's is, by far, the most interesting.
When the compartment in his pack was full, he'd transfered the leaves of parchment to this drawer. Though, he did resize them first. Flitwick had actually been impressed at how quickly he took to sizing charms. Neville didn't say anything, but he knew why. Like the D.A. last year, when he had a reason to learn something, he usually could.
He has two shrunken piles in the drawer now: the wrappers from his mum to keep for other clues and the pile of discarded anagrams from the gum-stained letters next to them.
~*~*~
GROUNDSWELL BOMB SITE BOG
This one feels like it has promise; it feels like he's onto a clue somehow. Maybe the stories he's been told are wrong. Maybe his parents hadn't been tortured; maybe it had been an explosion of some sort that addled their brains and they just needed the right Healing spell to snap them out of it.
Sometimes he thinks that if he can just be quicker -- if he can just come up with more -- than it would all make sense somehow. The mystery would be solved and he could stop being clumsy and stop feeling like a horrendous misfit and stop being teased about everything by everybody. Then he could stand up to Professor Snape and tell him to back off and Neville would finally stop feeling like a bloody coward most of the time.
But, really, he doesn't have time to think about all of that anymore. He has work to do. It has to mean something, he tells himself as he keeps going, the stale air of the library settling around him, It just has to.
~*~*~
thank you for reading! ♥
Happy Birthday, sweetie. *heart*