RP: The Amphibian Playdate

[rar_neville]

Date: 30 May 1998
Characters: Neville Longbottom, Eloise Midgen
Location: Hogwarts, by the lake
Status: Private
Summary: Neville and Eloise meet for lunch and to let Trevor and Marmite play.
Completion: Complete

Comments

[rar_eloise]

Eloise hugged Neville tightly, really very happy to see him here and unharmed. When she'd heard about what had happened, she'd been a little worried, despite her casual questions about singed hair in her owl to him. After a long moment, she released him, pulling back and smiling what felt like her first genuine smile in weeks.

"It's so good to see you. I'm well enough. Alright, that's complete and utter shite. I'm horrible, but I'm holding together as best I can. How are you? Let me see your hands. Bloody hell, this must have been horrible." The words came out in a rush. When she was around people she knew well and was comfortable with, sometimes she thought faster then she talked, and the result was usually amusing.

She took his hands in hers and eyed the still healing burns. He'd have some scarring most likely, like she did on her back, from where she'd been beaten bloody by He-Carrow. Madam Pomfrey had not been allowed to do anything for the long, painful weeks it had taken them to heal, and the resulting scars were dark and ugly. Like Neville's hands, a little something that insured they'd never forget this past year.

Marmite made a happy, croaking sound and bounded up from his hiding place beside the picnic basket when he saw Trevor. He kicked his back feet on the ground in excitement, then hopped over to the other toad, the two of them moving as if by one accord to the lake's edge.

"Toads," Eloise said with a laugh as she smoothed her fingers over Neville's palms. "You had these looked at, didn't you? Now that we can, I mean."

[rar_neville]

"Well enough is about the best any of us can say right now." Neville gave her another quick, hard hug. "There are times when I just want to scream at the unfairness of it all and never stop. I think I've been to more funerals in the past week alone than my whole life before." He sighed and let El take his hands. "The sad thing is that I was one of the luckier ones."

Tipping his head to one side, he watched El's fingers stroke gently over his palms. "I haven't been to Madam Pomfrey at all. Ginny's mum took care of these for me when she saw them a few days ago, put on some burn paste. The rest...well, they're going to scar anyway. There didn't seem any point in going."

He thought of the thin scars on his cheeks and the others on his body that only a trusted few had been permitted to see, much less know about.

Gently, he tugged his hands free. "It doesn't matter. I was never going to win any beauty contests even before this past year. I just want to eat lunch and talk about anything besides what happened."

He looked at the lakeshore, watching while Trevor and Marmite frolicked at the water's edge. "D'you think we'll ever be that carefree again?"

[rar_eloise]

Eloise followed Neville's gaze and thought for a moment. "I don't know that you and I were ever that carefree. Toads take living life without worries to a whole new level. Innocent, maybe, but I don't think we'll ever have that back. We can work on the carefree part though."

She drew him down onto the blanket and leaned back on her hands as he sat beside her, looking out over the water. She knew how he felt, wanting to think about other things. It was part of what kept her working so hard to get the greenhouses fixed back to the way they once were.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do now," she admitted, glancing over at him, the breeze from the lake blowing her hair into her face. "I keep going over options in my head. With last year the way it was, I don't think any of us thought we'd have a future, let alone have time to think about what we'd want to do. Now none of us even took NEWTS and I have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of my life." Her lips twitched into a smile.

"We could always open up a brewery-pub. Every one's going to need lots of beer to get over the past year. You can grow the hops and I can serve with my usual charm and wit. We'll drive them away in droves."

[rar_neville]

Neville turned his face into the freshening breeze blowing off the lake, closing his eyes and letting it ripple his clothes and push his hair back from his face. "I just know I'm going to do something with plants," he said. "If I took my NEWTs now I know I'd at least get the one for Herbology, maybe Charms as well, even if I did miss the last month of classes. The others? I know I'm going to have to retake them. There are some botanical careers that require more than good Herbology marks."

He nudged El's shoulder. "You doubt my hops-growing ability? I'm hurt, El. Crushed, even."

[rar_eloise]

Eloise nudged him back. "See. Put a hat on a bloke's head and suddenly he thinks he can do anything." Her words were teasing and she laughed, suddenly, outloud.

"You know I think you can do anything you set your mind to. Growing Hops. Arranging Honking Daffodils for legions of deaf old matrons. You're going to be brilliant. I know it." She leaned her head against his shoulder in the old familiar way they used to when they'd look up at the clouds and search for shapes in them.

"I don't know about me. I'm not that good at anything. I love Astronomy. And I know I'd probably get a NEWT in that and Charms. Divination too. Not sure what I can do with that. Be a charming fortune teller? I'll probably end up doing grunt work at the Ministry or a counter girl at some shop or other." She wasn't sure she'd mind that much. Ambitious she was not. She just wanted something she was good at.

[rar_neville]

"Just promise me you won't set it on fire if I do, yeah?" Neville nudged her back, laughing as he did. It felt good to laugh, really good.

Shifting so that Eloise's head fit more comfortably against his shoulder, Neville looked out across the lake. "I could grow hops for all the pubs in Britain, I guess," he said slowly. "Open up a plant nursery or a florist shop. Maybe become a professional gardener or landscaper for the richer Wizarding families. I think Professor Sprout wants me to take her place if she ever decides to retire, which is mad. I'd be a horrible professor."

He tipped his head back, studying the grey blanket of clouds overhead. "What do you like to do?" he asked. "What do you like that you can still see yourself doing ten years from now?"

[rar_eloise]

It felt good to be sitting here with Neville. Normal, even. There had been much too little of normal in her life for the past year. What with the Carrows she couldn't even remember the last time they'd just sat and done nothing, not worrying, not talking in hushed tones. A year maybe. Maaybe more.

"I don't think you'd be rubbish as a professor," she said. "People listen to you. They like you. And you care about people, genuinely. Like Professor Sprout. I think you'd do just fine at that. Or anything, really."

She thought about his question, her eyes on the two toads as they frolicked together in the shallows, playing some complicated toad game that seemed to involve chasing and splashing for the most part.

"I like to make people laugh," she said after a moment. "I like knowing I can make other people feel better. To forget what they're worried about for a little while, at least." She shrugged, slightly, careful not to disturb him beside her. "And ten years from now. I don't know. No. That's a lie. I do know. I just don't know if I'll have it." She tilted her head so she could see him. "I'd like a family. A partner. Children. A house with a kitchen I can cook in. It sounds stupid and simple, maybe, but... I want a life that's more then just work, you know? Work is nice, but it's not what life's all about. Life is about the people that love you."

She stopped, feeling a little hesitant. Part of her wondered if she'd ever really have that. She didn't feel strange saying it. Not to Neville.

[rar_neville]

"Really?" Neville turned his head, interested at her analysis. "It's the thought of standing up in front of all those faces day in and day out that makes me nervous. And before you say it, it's nothing like leading a DA meeting. I had Ginny and Luna to help me most of the year, make the nerves go away. I wouldn't be able to do that as a professor. I'd stand in front of the class and everything would go clean out of my head."

Neville glanced toward the toads, making sure they weren't getting into trouble. They seemed perfectly content with whatever game they seemed to be playing.

"Maybe a career on the WWN?" he suggested softly. "A show of your own on the wireless? I could see you doing that. You could be as funny and sarcastic and witty as you liked. You'd have to watch the language, though; but I know you can do that. Save it for when you go to commercial."

He sighed, gently dislodging El from his shoulder so he could fall back onto the blanket. "I have to get married someday," he said, not sounding particularly enthusiastic at the prospect. "I'm the last of the line. I mean, if I died there's a cousin who would inherit, but it's just me. I'd rather marry for love than duty, you know? It's...I don't think there's anyone out there. Everyone I'm interested in is interested in someone else."

'Everyone' actually meant 'one person', but Neville knew El would know what he meant.

[rar_eloise]

Eloise thought about Neville's suggestion about the WWN. She wasn't sure she would do that well at it, but it certainly was a thought. At least it gave her some sort of idea. Maybe she could do the horoscopes. She always thought the person doing it now was a bit dotty. Capricorns couldn't be facing a horrible tragic death every single day, could they?

It was something she'd have to think about, that was for sure. She was distracted from her thoughts as he fell back on the blanket and began to talk about getting married. She understood rather what he meant. While she certainly didn't have to get married. She rather thought she'd like to, someday, if she found someone who cared for her.

"You never know," Eloise said, giving him a perceptive look as she reached for the picnic basket and began to pull out the cold chicken sandwiches she'd made. "Everyone is only what, sixteen? And she hasn't seen someone else in a long time. You've been the one around the past year. Things change. People change." She sighed softly and poked him in the side with her index finger before handing him a sandwich.

"Don't be a stupid, bastard. You're too brilliant of a bloke to not find a girl to adore you. And if everyone doesn't come to realize that, I'll just have to marry you myself to prove it, you sad sod." She winked at him and began to rummage for the tea things.

"What? It's true," she was half laughing as she said it, though, and she almost spilled the hot tea out of the flash as she poured it into cups. "Hell. At least you have an everyone. I have absolutely no one I fancy and no prospects either, so if anyone deserves to look down in the mouth, it's me."

[rar_neville]

Neville took the sandwich and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully. "She's one of the few who don't look at me differently," he said. "Her, you, Luna, a few others. Everyone else looks at me like I've grown a second head, or a third arm. She likes me for me, but she thinks I'm a friend. I've learned to be happy with that."

"The problem is that I don't know now who would like me for me, or who would want to be with me just because I'm Neville Longbottom, Slayer of Serpents. I haven't been around girls long enough to know the difference. All the sudden attention...it's weird."

He looked over as Eloise nearly spilled hot tea on both of them. "At least if someone takes a fancy to you, you'll know it's because of you. I rather envy that, right now."

[rar_eloise]

"That's assuming anyone would ever want to take a fancy to me. They're not exactly lining up, Neville." She handed him a cup of tea and took a hesitant sip of her own.

"And it will be odd for a while, but it will fade. As for the girls, the ones who like you for you aren't going to be the ones with the big smiles and the sudden interest. Try the ones who actually talk to you, not the ones who just want to listen to the story of how you killed a snake."

She might not know boys well, but she knew girls. And she knew enough about people who were fake and people who weren't. She never had much use for the latter.

[rar_neville]

Neville sat up, accepting the tea, which El had made just as he liked it. "They weren't exactly lining up before I killed the damn snake, either," he pointed out. "I'll have to stay lonely until the ruckus dies down. And if I do find someone interested in me, I'll have you to suss them out to find whether or not they're for real."

He sipped the tea before setting it aside abruptly and leaping to his feet. "Trevor, come back here!"

[rar_eloise]

Eloise shaded her eyes and watched as Neville had to go reign in the toads as they made a bid for freedom towards the lake. She pulled out a sack of marshmallows and began to crinkle the paper to draw Marmite in closer.

Once both toads were settled down, happily munching, she looked over at Neville.

"I'm glad you're okay, you know," she said softly, reaching over and squeezing his arm. "If anything had happened to you... " she didn't finish the thought. It was too horrible. If something had happened to Neville, she wouldn't have had anyone left who really cared about who she was. She was getting to know Susan and Hannah better, but that didn't take the place of someone who'd known you well for years and liked you anyway.

[rar_neville]

"It was the scariest thing ever," Neville replied after a long moment, remembering the Body Bind spell and the struggle to sidestep it as they'd practiced during DA meetings. He could still smell the Hat's musty scent, hear the rush and crackle of flame and the screams of the crowd behind him. He picked at his sandwich, unable to look at anyone.

"I dreamed about it at night, the first few days after," he said slowly. "Except, in the dream, I couldn't break the bind, and there was no sword in the hat, and I died. Burned to death, screaming, and the last thing I'd hear was his laughter for my foolishness." He shivered in remembrance, suddenly cold, and reached once more for the tea, grateful for its more benign heat as he cradled the cup in his hands. "I haven't told that to anyone."

[rar_eloise]

"Oh, Neville," Eloise whispered. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him from behind, burying her face in his hair. She could only imagine how terrifying it had to have been. During the battle, she remembered hexes flying by her, debris falling, and the absolute terror she'd felt when the Astronomy tower had started to collapse around her. Her last thought had been of her family and she could imagine Neville, at the mercy of He Who Must Not Be Named, thinking he might die.

"You were so brave this year. And so strong. And not because you were trying to prove anything, just because you were. Because it's who you are." She let her chin drop so it rested on his shoulder.

"The Carrows wanted to kill me, I think," she said softly. "That last time? I never told you why I started writing the assignments, but it was bad. I didn't want you to feel you had to protect me like the other girls. Carrow beat me and then he sent one of the students in to torture me. He was supposed to use the Crucio for the entire detention. To be "thourough". But he let me go without doing anything. If he hadn't... I think I would have died." Or ended up like Neville's parents, although she didn't say that.

"I've never told anyone that, either," she said.

[rar_neville]

Neville leaned back into Eloise's embrace, accepting the offer of comfort. "I didn't feel strong," he murmured. "I'm surprised I didn't wet myself. I'm glad you think I am, even if I'm not sure I believe it."

He stiffened as she told about the Carrows and what they'd done to her. He'd tried to protect everyone from them when possible, taking others' detentions and beatings and cursings when he could, deflecting attention onto him, doing his best to make himself the target. He knew he couldn't succeed with everyone, but to hear El's story...

"I'm sorry," he said, wrapping his hands around her wrists and holding tight. "Who was the student who spared you?" That alone was intriguing. He certainly hadn't been spared, but by the end the only student the Carrows sent to him was usually Crabbe.