Birthdayfic: "Children of War" [Neville, Millicent, gen, PG-13]

[kennahijja]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
LAZY_NEUTRINO!
Title: Children of War
Character(s): Neville, Millicent
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): references to torture
Summary: “Yeah, well, I couldn’t ask people to go through what Michael did, so we dropped those kinds of stunts. (Neville Longbottom, Deathly Hallows)
Author's Note: Happy Birthday, dearest lazy_neutrino! I hope the coming year will be

Comments

Children of War

[catsintheattic]

This is a brilliant comparison between Gryffindor and Slytherin. "And get ourselves in trouble for your stupidity? Why? What do we owe you?". Exactly. *nods* And yet the Slytherins help, because logic and self-protection demand it, and because at least some of them don't like what they have to do. They would never openly sacrifice themselves, but that doesn't mean that they don't care about their families and friends.

I love how you included the subtle in-group differences and out-group similarities: Neville not wanting to look like Harry storming off and Milicent twisting her braid in the same way as Ginny. And you went even further on the larger scale of events and showed that Neville's parents (and Harry's just as well) might not have been nothing but saints. They had dirty work to do and we might assume that they did their job.

The ending was wonderful - Neville did so much growing up in this final year, and you give us a beautiful glimpse of how he started to accept his role as a leader, how he took responsibility on such a larger scale.

Lazy_neutrino is a very lucky birthday-girl to receive such a wonderful present!

Re: Children of War

[kennahijja]

I'm so happy you liked it, and the ending in particular. As my poor beta knows, I wibbled over that quite a bit.

Gryffindor/Slytherin differences and moral shades of grey are themes I seem to keep coming back to... Again, thanks for the lovely comment, and I'm glad my first try to write Neville wasn't too horrid :).