FIC for: lindy_grl123
Title: Expeditions in the Attic
Recipient: lindy_grl123
Fic or Art: Fic
Rating: G
Characters: Neville and Augusta Longbottom, with appearances by Frank and Alice
Warnings: None
Summary: Gran takes Neville on an adventure
Notes: For lindy_grl123, who asked for "any and all Longbottoms." I hope you enjoy it! With many thanks to my wonderful beta, who always knows how to unlock the sticking points.
Neville sat scrunched up on the dusty floor of wardrobe in the third-floor spare bedroom. If he made himself small enough, he could just hide behind the set of rusty orange robes hanging in the back corner. Neville closed his eyes and held his breath, hoping he wouldn't be noticed.
Several minutes passed, and then footsteps approached. The wardrobe door creaked open. He heard the squeal of hangers being pushed aside and felt dusty fabric tickle his nose before he finally opened his eyes and looked up.
"I don't want to go, Gran," he said.
Gran sighed, then knelt down in front of him. "You'll find as you get older that you have to do many things that you might not want to." She leaned forward and brushed at the tear-tracks on his face with her thumb. "Your parents will be wanting to see you."
Neville thrust out his lower lip. "They won't even know the difference," he said.
"Don't pout," Gran said, standing. "It's unattractive. Get out of there."
Neville sighed and climbed out of the wardrobe, knocking his limbs against the wood as loudly as possible to convey his displeasure.
Gran looked down at him, her left eyebrow raised.
Neville averted his eyes and followed her out of the room quietly.
* * * * *
Neville hated St. Mungo's. It smelled weird and everyone looked at him like they thought he was going to be noisy or knock things over. Neville did occasionally bump things over, but he was very seldom noisy, and he always apologized for his clumsiness.
Gran swept into the ward as if it was just another room in her own home. As always, she greeted the healer on duty with an imperious nod of her head before dragging Neville into the fabric-draped cubicle where his parents lived.
Neville's father sat by the window, watching the progress of a small beetle as it crawled along the sill, looking for an escape. His mother sat on one of the beds, folding and unfolding a small piece of paper.
"Hello, Alice. Good morning, Frank, dear." Gran deposited her handbag on the bed before walking over to kiss Neville's dad on the cheek. Dad tore his eyes away from the bug and blinked at Gran. "Neville, why don't you tell your mum about the marigolds we planted."
Neville sat down on the bed and smiled up at his mum hopefully. "Uncle Algie let me have a little plot in his garden," Neville said. "We planted marigolds. Gran helped. They've come in all nice and yellow."
Neville's mum frowned at him for a moment before shaking her head and turning back to the paper in her hands.
"Neville has a birthday coming up this month," Gran said loudly. "He's going to be eight."
Without a word, both of his parents turned to look at him with blank faces. Neville blushed under their scrutiny and looked at his hands.
"Somebody might be getting a broomstick this year," Gran continued.
"I'll probably just fall off," Neville said.
"Nonsense," Gran said. She patted his father's hand. "When my Frank was your age, he was already practicing his Porskoff Ploys and Woollongong Shimmies."
Neville said nothing.
"Of course, when my Frank was your age, he was already turning his teacups into toy soldiers. Our Neville's more like one of Algie's late-blooming mist shrubs."
Neville picked at a piece of lint on his mother's duvet.
"Do you remember, Frank? The first time you got on a broom, you ended up flying so high that you got all tangled up in the kite that your Aunt Enid was flying." Gran smiled at the memory. She looked over at Neville. "Your father always did love to fly."
"Maybe I could get a new kite for my birthday instead? One shaped like a Chinese Fireball!" Neville said.
Gran's smile faded slightly. "We'll see," she said. She smoothed her hand through his father's hair and fussed with his collar. "Well, we should be headed home now. Goodbye, dears."
Neville stood up. "Goodbye," he said.
Mum smiled at him and held out the crumpled piece of paper she had been folding and unfolding during the visit. It was a Drooble's Best Blowing Gum wrapper. Neville wrinkled his nose at it for a moment before sliding it into his pocket and saying, "Thank you."
"All right, dear," Gran said, taking him by the hand. She turned back to his parents. "We'll come back and see you soon." She led Neville out of the ward.
Neville turned and looked over his shoulder as they headed for the lifts. His parents had come to the door of their room and watched expressionlessly until the healer came and herded them back inside.
* * * * *
When they returned home, Gran looked at him appraisingly for a moment before setting down her handbag. "Neville, can you please go get Grandad's old safari hat and meet me in the kitchen?"
"Grandad's safari hat?" Neville repeated, mystified.
Gran nodded. "Yes, please. We'll be needing it."
When Neville returned to the kitchen, Pendel the house-elf was putting together cheese sandwiches while Gran placed a bottle of lemonade into a slightly worn hamper.
"Brilliant!" Gran said, upon seeing him. "Now come here."
Neville walked over to her with a growing sense of dread. Gran took the hat from him and placed it on his head, adjusting the strap under his chin.
"Gran, what are we doing?" he asked.
Gran smiled. "We're going on adventure!" she said.
"Is that why I need the safari hat?"
"Of course!" Gran said. "You can't go on an adventure without the proper attire."
"But you don't have a safari hat," Neville said.
"Well, that's easy enough to fix," Gran said. She took off her own vulture-topped hat and pointed her wand at it. After a moment, a green pith helmet sat in its place. Gran placed the transfigured hat on her head and nodded decisively. "Now we're ready."
Pendel put the assembled sandwiches into the hamper and handed it to Gran. "Mistress will be wanting her sandwiches," he said.
"Ah, yes! Our provisions!" Gran said.
Neville frowned. Gran was acting very strange.
"What sort of adventure are we going on?" he asked, trying to sound casual but only managing to sound suspicious.
"An archeological and genealogical expedition!" Gran said.
Neville blinked.
"In the attic!" Gran continued.
"I don't want to go up into the attic, Gran," Neville said. "There's ghosts up there."
Gran set the hamper down on the table, exasperated. "Neville Longbottom, there are no ghosts in that attic. Who told you that?" she demanded.
"Great Aunt Enid said the trunks up there were full of old ghosts," Neville said in a small voice.
Gran huffed. "Oh, of all the stupid, irresponsible--Neville, please come up into the attic with me." She crouched down in front of him and tugged gently at the brim of his hat. "I promise there's nothing up there that will hurt you."
"What about the ghosts?"
"They're metaphorical ghosts at best, and besides that, ghosts wont hurt you."
"Metamorphmagus ghosts?" Neville asked, with some alarm. They had seen a teenage girl with pink hair and a pig snout in Diagon Alley just last week, and Gran had explained that she was a Metamorphmagus. Neville was fairly sure he wouldn't want to run into that girl in the attic; she had been scowling fiercely at the dignified-looking witch leading her into Madam Malkin's.
"Meta--oh, never mind that. There are no ghosts in that attic, and even if there were, the ghosts would not hurt you," Gran said. "You'll see when you get to Hogwarts. The ghosts there are all very helpful."
Neville wasn't convinced that he would ever need to worry about the Hogwarts ghosts. He had heard the whispered discussions the grown-ups had when they thought he wasn't paying attention.
"So we're going on an adventure, then?" he asked.
Gran beamed. "That's right." She picked up the hamper and took him by the hand. "Let's go!"
* * * * *
The attic was dusty. Neville stifled a sneeze, lest Gran start glaring at him, but she heard anyway. Wordlessly, she reached into her sleeve and handed him a handkerchief.
"Well! I suppose I should ask Pendel to start cleaning up here," Gran said. "Never mind that now; it wouldn't be a proper archaeological excavation if it wasn't a little bit dirty."
"Gran, you hate dirt," Neville said.
Gran lifted her chin. "This is dirt with a purpose. Lumos!" A beam of light shot from the end of Gran's wand, illuminating piles of boxes and cartons.
"Over here," she said, pulling Neville towards the window. She lifted the hem of her dress slightly and sat down on the floor in front of a large, dusty trunk.
Neville dropped to the floor next to her. "What's this?" he asked.
"This," Gran said, "was your father's trunk when he was at Hogwarts." She blew at the dust covering the lid of the trunk for a moment before giving up and vanishing the dust with her wand. "Shall we see what's inside?"
Neville nodded, eyes wide. Gran flicked the latches on the trunk and pushed back the lid. Neville leaned over the edge and peered inside.
"Dad has a lot of junk," he said.
"Junk?" Gran asked, scandalized. "Neville, this is not junk, this is history." She pulled a photo album from the trunk. "This is your dad's life, right here."
"Sorry, Gran," Neville said.
She opened the album. "See, this is your dad on his first day of Hogwarts. Come here," she said, and settled against the wall. She pulled Neville next to her so that he was trapped between her arms and the photo album.
Neville studied the photograph. His father stood on a train platform, small and bony, dwarfed by an enormous trunk that was standing on its end. After a moment, he realized it was the same trunk that Neville sat in front of now. It was very strange to look at a picture of his father and think that he had once been Neville's age.
Gran looked at him expectantly.
"You have the same nose," he said finally.
Gran rubbed her bony nose ruefully. "Your father carries it much better than I do."
"His hair is funny-looking, too," Neville said.
"In twenty years, we'll come back and look at photographs of you and see what you have to say then," Gran said.
They paged through the album slowly, and Gran told stories about each of the pictures.
"I always liked this one," Gran said when they reached a photo of Neville's dad, even younger than Neville was now. Neville's dad lay sprawled out asleep on his back with one leg resting on an enormous black and white cat that was dozing in a similar drowsy pose. "Of course, this was before we realized how allergic Frank was to cats. He always chose toads as his familiars after that."
"I think I'd like to have a toad," Neville said. "They always look so happy when they hop."
"Toads are a smart choice," Gran said. "Cats tend to think that you belong to them, not the other way around."
Neville turned the page. "Is that Great Uncle Algie?" he asked. In the photograph, Neville's dad stood next to a familiar-looking man, grinning at the camera and holding a broomstick aloft.
"No, that's Grandad. He and Algie looked very much alike when they were younger."
"It's weird to see Grandad young," Neville said. In his memory, his grandfather was small, wizened, and covered in liver spots.
"Like I said earlier, wait until you get old," Gran said. "Look, here's one from your parents' wedding."
"Wow," Neville said. He'd never seen so much maroon velvet, lace and ruffles all in one place before.
"It was such a lovely day," Gran said. "Frank and Alice were both so happy."
Neville looked at the picture again. "These are my parents," he said slowly. In the photo, Neville's mum smiled and waved shyly. "But they're not anything like this now!"
Gran squeezed his arm. "I know, dear," she said. "And they probably won't ever be like that again. But you must remember: your parents are heroes."
"What good is it to be a hero if you can't even recognize your own kid?" Neville cried. "It's not fair!"
Gran exhaled. "No, it's not," she said. "But it's life."
"Life is stupid sometimes," Neville muttered. He turned the page viciously.
"And sometimes that stupidity is worth preserving," Gran said. She tapped her finger under a photograph of a small group of people. "Your parents' friends in the Order of the Phoenix."
"These people fought You-Know-Who, too?" Neville asked. "What happened to them?"
Gran pushed back her hat. "Well, some of them lived, and some of them died. They knew what they were fighting for." She tapped the picture again. "You see those people there? That's James and Lily Potter."
"The Boy Who Lived's parents? Mum and Dad were friends with them?"
"The very same. You know, you're the same age as Harry Potter," Gran said. "You'll be at Hogwarts together."
"Do you think we'll be friends, too?" Neville asked.
"Oh, it wouldn't surprise me if you were, not if he's anything like his parents. They were one of the nicest couples I ever met."
"Do you think he misses his parents?" Neville asked. "I mean, he can't even go visit them."
"I'm sure he does, dear," Gran said. She patted his hand.
Neville turned to the last page in the album, pensive. He hated visiting his parents at St. Mungo's, but at least his parents were still there to visit. He thought it must be very lonely to be the Boy Who Lived.
The final picture showed his mum, looking much younger and happier than Neville had ever seen her. She was holding a smiling, round-faced baby on her lap.
"Gran, who's that?" Neville asked.
"Why, that's you, dear!" Gran said. "Your parents may not know you now, but I can assure you that they loved you very, very much."
Gran pursed her lips. "Both of your parents were so full of love. I remember when Frank first fell for your mum. He told me that he was in love with the most beautiful girl in the world." She sniffed. "I didn't believe him, of course. All young men think that their girl is the most beautiful woman in the world. And then you were born, and you looked just like your mum, and oh, then I knew exactly what he meant." Gran passed a hand across her eyes and gave Neville a slightly watery smile.
Neville reached out and closed the album. "Dad and Mum really were happy," he said.
Gran sighed. "Yes, they were. Shall we see what else is in there?"
"Yes!" Neville said.
The next thing Gran pulled out of the trunk was a pile of letters. She paged through a few of the ones on top, her eyes widening. After a moment, she blinked and stuffed the entire sheaf into her pocket. "Those were from your mother. You can read those when you're, ah, older."
Neville shrugged, turning his attention back to the trunk. "Hey, look, Gran, it's a kite!" He pulled the kite carefully from the trunk, beaming.
"So it is," Gran said. "Well, it's no Chinese Fireball, but would you like to have it?"
"Yes, please!" Neville said. "Was this Dad's, too?"
"Oh, yes. I think Aunt Enid gave it to him for his ninth birthday. May I see it?" Gran asked. She picked up the kite and inspected it carefully.
"It looks like one of the frame pieces has snapped. I daresay the wind charms could probably use a refresh, too." She handed the kite back to Neville. "I bet if you ask Aunt Enid, she'll help you get it flying again."
"Thanks, Gran!" Great Aunt Enid was a little bit scary, but she knew more about kite flying than anyone Neville knew. "So Dad would fly kites with Great Aunt Enid, too?"
"Oh, sometimes," Gran said. "Your dad preferred flying broomsticks, really, but you know Enid. Crazy for her kites. Her enthusiasm is contagious."
"I like flying kites," Neville said defensively. "Great Aunt Enid told me that the Muggles discovered their electricity by flying kites."
Gran looked alarmed. "Neville, if Aunt Enid ever asks you to go fly kites during a thunderstorm, tell her no."
"Why would we fly kites in the rain?" he asked. "Did Dad do that?"
"He did once, and he nearly got zapped by some of that Muggle electricity. So just...don't. Honestly, sometimes Enid doesn't have any sense at all."
"Zapped?" Neville asked.
"Like being hexed," she said. "Very painful."
"Dad wasn't actually hit, though?"
"No, thank goodness," Gran said. "Sometimes that boy was too reckless for his own good. That's the downside to all that Gryffindor courage."
"Isn't that just being a hero?" Neville asked.
"No," Gran said sharply. "There is being reckless, and then there is having the courage of one's own convictions. They are not the same thing."
"All right," Neville said petulantly.
Gran was silent for a moment. "Well," she said eventually, "all of this excavating has made me thirsty. Shall we break into our provisions?"
"Here?" Neville asked.
"Of course!" Gran said. "It will be like a floor picnic. Accio hamper!"
The hamper slid across the floor into Gran's outstretched hands. She flipped the lid back, handed Neville one of the sandwiches and opened the bottle of lemonade. They ate in silence. Neville kept darting glances at Gran, waiting for her to resume her normal imperious demeanor. Before today, Neville never would have expected to see Gran sitting on the floor, eating a cheese sandwich. For her part, Gran looked lost in thought, staring off into the middle distance as she ate.
When Neville finished his sandwich, he put the wrapper back in the hamper and looked up at Gran. "Can we see what else is in the trunk?"
Gran shook her head and blinked, startled. She favored Neville with a bright, unnatural-looking smile. "Of course."
Neville shifted aside more wadded-up parchments and emerged with a pair of ice skates. "Dad ice skated?" Neville asked.
Gran snorted, sounding more like herself. "Not very well. I think those are your mother's." She smiled faintly. "I remember when Alice tried to teach your dad to ice skate," Gran said. "My Frank was an excellent flier, but he wasn't particularly graceful on the ice. In the end, I think he ended up putting a levitation charm on himself to stay upright whenever they would go skating. Alice did love to skate."
Neville blinked. "You can do that? The levitation charm, I mean."
Gran laughed. "It's not the best option, but it seemed to work at the time. Of course, your mum was a bit put out when she realized that's what he'd been doing."
"I probably wouldn't be very good at ice skating," Neville said.
"No, probably not," Gran said. "But who knows, maybe you inherited the ability from Alice."
"Maybe we could try it sometime," Neville suggested.
"I'm quite sure that I would be hopeless at it," Gran said. "But we'll see."
"You could put levitation charms on us," Neville said.
"Or I could feed you a steady diet of Fizzing Whizbees," Gran said. "The effect would be the same, and if that's what you're after, then there's no reason to bother with skates in the first place."
Neville dropped the subject, since it was clearly making her grumpy. "It's your turn to take something out of the trunk," he said.
Gran rummaged in the trunk for a minute. "Oh," she said. She sat back on her heels, a small oblong box in her hands. "I hadn't realized this was in there."
"What is it, Gran?" Neville asked.
"It's your father's wand," she said. She opened the box and pulled out the wand. "Neville, this will be yours when you go to Hogwarts."
Neville nodded, eyes wide.
"I will expect you to take very good care of this. Frank had this wand from the time he was eleven years old until he went into St. Mungo's." Gran handed the wand to Neville. "This wand is your father's legacy, and it will be yours to carry on."
"Did he use this wand when You-Know-Who's bad guys came for him and Mum?" Neville imagined himself in his father's place, holding off the Death Eater hordes with just the wand in his hand. His fingers trembled.
"He didn't have his wand on him when they found him after the attack," Gran said quietly. "Either he was disarmed, or You-Know-Who's followers caught him without it. Knowing your father, I'd wager they managed to disarm him somehow."
"It wasn't enough," Neville said, looking down at the wand in disgust.
"Your parents were outnumbered and under attack from some of the most vicious witches and wizards in Britain," Gran said. "Your father defied You-Know-Who himself with that wand; I should think it would be good enough for you."
"Dad faced down You-Know-Who?" Neville asked, shocked. He'd never heard that before.
"Three times," Gran said. "Your parents were remarkable people. They stood against You-Know-Who because they knew that what he preached was dangerous and wrong. Not everyone would do that. Too many people would stand idly by, because they were afraid."
She took the wand back from him. "That's what real courage is," Gran continued. "It's being able to still take action even when you're scared to death."
Neville imagined his father again, dueling against You-Know-Who with shaking hands. He swallowed. "Maybe--maybe we should put it back in the box for now."
Gran nodded. "You'll use it when you're ready." She slid the wand back into the box. "We'll bring this down with us. It deserves better than to be tucked away in some dusty old attic."
"All right," Neville said, subdued.
"Good," Gran said. "One more artifact before we call it a day?"
Neville reached into the trunk again with some trepidation, and pulled out a shoebox. "More skates?" he asked.
"I don't know," Gran said. "Open it and see."
Neville tugged off the lid. "Sweets," he said, puzzled. "Or, sweets wrappers, rather."
Gran's forehead wrinkled. "I have no idea what that's about," she said. She picked out one of the wrappers. "Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. They must be Alice's, but I've no idea why she'd keep them."
Neville inspected another wrapper, which was folded intricately. He squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger until the sides popped out. "It's like a little paper balloon. There's more," he said, pointing. "That one's a star, and I think that Honeydukes wrapper is a really squashed bird. There's dozens of them in here."
Gran shook her head. "How odd. Anyway, I think this is enough for one day." She clutched the box with his father's wand tightly in one hand. "We should go get cleaned up now." She picked up the hamper and headed for the stairs.
"Yes, Gran," Neville said. He stood up to follow her, then stopped. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gum wrapper that his mother had handed him that morning. It was creased from where she had been folding it, but he couldn't tell what shape she had been trying to form. He wondered if he could turn it into one of those little paper balloons.
"Neville? Are you coming?"
"Just a minute!" Neville called. He folded the wrapper neatly in half and placed it carefully in the shoebox. With a small smile, tucked the shoebox under his arm and followed Gran downstairs.
There was an excellent hiding spot for the box in the wardrobe in the third-floor spare bedroom. Artifacts need to be researched, after all.
Recipient: lindy_grl123
Fic or Art: Fic
Rating: G
Characters: Neville and Augusta Longbottom, with appearances by Frank and Alice
Warnings: None
Summary: Gran takes Neville on an adventure
Notes: For lindy_grl123, who asked for "any and all Longbottoms." I hope you enjoy it! With many thanks to my wonderful beta, who always knows how to unlock the sticking points.
Neville sat scrunched up on the dusty floor of wardrobe in the third-floor spare bedroom. If he made himself small enough, he could just hide behind the set of rusty orange robes hanging in the back corner. Neville closed his eyes and held his breath, hoping he wouldn't be noticed.
Several minutes passed, and then footsteps approached. The wardrobe door creaked open. He heard the squeal of hangers being pushed aside and felt dusty fabric tickle his nose before he finally opened his eyes and looked up.
"I don't want to go, Gran," he said.
Gran sighed, then knelt down in front of him. "You'll find as you get older that you have to do many things that you might not want to." She leaned forward and brushed at the tear-tracks on his face with her thumb. "Your parents will be wanting to see you."
Neville thrust out his lower lip. "They won't even know the difference," he said.
"Don't pout," Gran said, standing. "It's unattractive. Get out of there."
Neville sighed and climbed out of the wardrobe, knocking his limbs against the wood as loudly as possible to convey his displeasure.
Gran looked down at him, her left eyebrow raised.
Neville averted his eyes and followed her out of the room quietly.
* * * * *
Neville hated St. Mungo's. It smelled weird and everyone looked at him like they thought he was going to be noisy or knock things over. Neville did occasionally bump things over, but he was very seldom noisy, and he always apologized for his clumsiness.
Gran swept into the ward as if it was just another room in her own home. As always, she greeted the healer on duty with an imperious nod of her head before dragging Neville into the fabric-draped cubicle where his parents lived.
Neville's father sat by the window, watching the progress of a small beetle as it crawled along the sill, looking for an escape. His mother sat on one of the beds, folding and unfolding a small piece of paper.
"Hello, Alice. Good morning, Frank, dear." Gran deposited her handbag on the bed before walking over to kiss Neville's dad on the cheek. Dad tore his eyes away from the bug and blinked at Gran. "Neville, why don't you tell your mum about the marigolds we planted."
Neville sat down on the bed and smiled up at his mum hopefully. "Uncle Algie let me have a little plot in his garden," Neville said. "We planted marigolds. Gran helped. They've come in all nice and yellow."
Neville's mum frowned at him for a moment before shaking her head and turning back to the paper in her hands.
"Neville has a birthday coming up this month," Gran said loudly. "He's going to be eight."
Without a word, both of his parents turned to look at him with blank faces. Neville blushed under their scrutiny and looked at his hands.
"Somebody might be getting a broomstick this year," Gran continued.
"I'll probably just fall off," Neville said.
"Nonsense," Gran said. She patted his father's hand. "When my Frank was your age, he was already practicing his Porskoff Ploys and Woollongong Shimmies."
Neville said nothing.
"Of course, when my Frank was your age, he was already turning his teacups into toy soldiers. Our Neville's more like one of Algie's late-blooming mist shrubs."
Neville picked at a piece of lint on his mother's duvet.
"Do you remember, Frank? The first time you got on a broom, you ended up flying so high that you got all tangled up in the kite that your Aunt Enid was flying." Gran smiled at the memory. She looked over at Neville. "Your father always did love to fly."
"Maybe I could get a new kite for my birthday instead? One shaped like a Chinese Fireball!" Neville said.
Gran's smile faded slightly. "We'll see," she said. She smoothed her hand through his father's hair and fussed with his collar. "Well, we should be headed home now. Goodbye, dears."
Neville stood up. "Goodbye," he said.
Mum smiled at him and held out the crumpled piece of paper she had been folding and unfolding during the visit. It was a Drooble's Best Blowing Gum wrapper. Neville wrinkled his nose at it for a moment before sliding it into his pocket and saying, "Thank you."
"All right, dear," Gran said, taking him by the hand. She turned back to his parents. "We'll come back and see you soon." She led Neville out of the ward.
Neville turned and looked over his shoulder as they headed for the lifts. His parents had come to the door of their room and watched expressionlessly until the healer came and herded them back inside.
* * * * *
When they returned home, Gran looked at him appraisingly for a moment before setting down her handbag. "Neville, can you please go get Grandad's old safari hat and meet me in the kitchen?"
"Grandad's safari hat?" Neville repeated, mystified.
Gran nodded. "Yes, please. We'll be needing it."
When Neville returned to the kitchen, Pendel the house-elf was putting together cheese sandwiches while Gran placed a bottle of lemonade into a slightly worn hamper.
"Brilliant!" Gran said, upon seeing him. "Now come here."
Neville walked over to her with a growing sense of dread. Gran took the hat from him and placed it on his head, adjusting the strap under his chin.
"Gran, what are we doing?" he asked.
Gran smiled. "We're going on adventure!" she said.
"Is that why I need the safari hat?"
"Of course!" Gran said. "You can't go on an adventure without the proper attire."
"But you don't have a safari hat," Neville said.
"Well, that's easy enough to fix," Gran said. She took off her own vulture-topped hat and pointed her wand at it. After a moment, a green pith helmet sat in its place. Gran placed the transfigured hat on her head and nodded decisively. "Now we're ready."
Pendel put the assembled sandwiches into the hamper and handed it to Gran. "Mistress will be wanting her sandwiches," he said.
"Ah, yes! Our provisions!" Gran said.
Neville frowned. Gran was acting very strange.
"What sort of adventure are we going on?" he asked, trying to sound casual but only managing to sound suspicious.
"An archeological and genealogical expedition!" Gran said.
Neville blinked.
"In the attic!" Gran continued.
"I don't want to go up into the attic, Gran," Neville said. "There's ghosts up there."
Gran set the hamper down on the table, exasperated. "Neville Longbottom, there are no ghosts in that attic. Who told you that?" she demanded.
"Great Aunt Enid said the trunks up there were full of old ghosts," Neville said in a small voice.
Gran huffed. "Oh, of all the stupid, irresponsible--Neville, please come up into the attic with me." She crouched down in front of him and tugged gently at the brim of his hat. "I promise there's nothing up there that will hurt you."
"What about the ghosts?"
"They're metaphorical ghosts at best, and besides that, ghosts wont hurt you."
"Metamorphmagus ghosts?" Neville asked, with some alarm. They had seen a teenage girl with pink hair and a pig snout in Diagon Alley just last week, and Gran had explained that she was a Metamorphmagus. Neville was fairly sure he wouldn't want to run into that girl in the attic; she had been scowling fiercely at the dignified-looking witch leading her into Madam Malkin's.
"Meta--oh, never mind that. There are no ghosts in that attic, and even if there were, the ghosts would not hurt you," Gran said. "You'll see when you get to Hogwarts. The ghosts there are all very helpful."
Neville wasn't convinced that he would ever need to worry about the Hogwarts ghosts. He had heard the whispered discussions the grown-ups had when they thought he wasn't paying attention.
"So we're going on an adventure, then?" he asked.
Gran beamed. "That's right." She picked up the hamper and took him by the hand. "Let's go!"
* * * * *
The attic was dusty. Neville stifled a sneeze, lest Gran start glaring at him, but she heard anyway. Wordlessly, she reached into her sleeve and handed him a handkerchief.
"Well! I suppose I should ask Pendel to start cleaning up here," Gran said. "Never mind that now; it wouldn't be a proper archaeological excavation if it wasn't a little bit dirty."
"Gran, you hate dirt," Neville said.
Gran lifted her chin. "This is dirt with a purpose. Lumos!" A beam of light shot from the end of Gran's wand, illuminating piles of boxes and cartons.
"Over here," she said, pulling Neville towards the window. She lifted the hem of her dress slightly and sat down on the floor in front of a large, dusty trunk.
Neville dropped to the floor next to her. "What's this?" he asked.
"This," Gran said, "was your father's trunk when he was at Hogwarts." She blew at the dust covering the lid of the trunk for a moment before giving up and vanishing the dust with her wand. "Shall we see what's inside?"
Neville nodded, eyes wide. Gran flicked the latches on the trunk and pushed back the lid. Neville leaned over the edge and peered inside.
"Dad has a lot of junk," he said.
"Junk?" Gran asked, scandalized. "Neville, this is not junk, this is history." She pulled a photo album from the trunk. "This is your dad's life, right here."
"Sorry, Gran," Neville said.
She opened the album. "See, this is your dad on his first day of Hogwarts. Come here," she said, and settled against the wall. She pulled Neville next to her so that he was trapped between her arms and the photo album.
Neville studied the photograph. His father stood on a train platform, small and bony, dwarfed by an enormous trunk that was standing on its end. After a moment, he realized it was the same trunk that Neville sat in front of now. It was very strange to look at a picture of his father and think that he had once been Neville's age.
Gran looked at him expectantly.
"You have the same nose," he said finally.
Gran rubbed her bony nose ruefully. "Your father carries it much better than I do."
"His hair is funny-looking, too," Neville said.
"In twenty years, we'll come back and look at photographs of you and see what you have to say then," Gran said.
They paged through the album slowly, and Gran told stories about each of the pictures.
"I always liked this one," Gran said when they reached a photo of Neville's dad, even younger than Neville was now. Neville's dad lay sprawled out asleep on his back with one leg resting on an enormous black and white cat that was dozing in a similar drowsy pose. "Of course, this was before we realized how allergic Frank was to cats. He always chose toads as his familiars after that."
"I think I'd like to have a toad," Neville said. "They always look so happy when they hop."
"Toads are a smart choice," Gran said. "Cats tend to think that you belong to them, not the other way around."
Neville turned the page. "Is that Great Uncle Algie?" he asked. In the photograph, Neville's dad stood next to a familiar-looking man, grinning at the camera and holding a broomstick aloft.
"No, that's Grandad. He and Algie looked very much alike when they were younger."
"It's weird to see Grandad young," Neville said. In his memory, his grandfather was small, wizened, and covered in liver spots.
"Like I said earlier, wait until you get old," Gran said. "Look, here's one from your parents' wedding."
"Wow," Neville said. He'd never seen so much maroon velvet, lace and ruffles all in one place before.
"It was such a lovely day," Gran said. "Frank and Alice were both so happy."
Neville looked at the picture again. "These are my parents," he said slowly. In the photo, Neville's mum smiled and waved shyly. "But they're not anything like this now!"
Gran squeezed his arm. "I know, dear," she said. "And they probably won't ever be like that again. But you must remember: your parents are heroes."
"What good is it to be a hero if you can't even recognize your own kid?" Neville cried. "It's not fair!"
Gran exhaled. "No, it's not," she said. "But it's life."
"Life is stupid sometimes," Neville muttered. He turned the page viciously.
"And sometimes that stupidity is worth preserving," Gran said. She tapped her finger under a photograph of a small group of people. "Your parents' friends in the Order of the Phoenix."
"These people fought You-Know-Who, too?" Neville asked. "What happened to them?"
Gran pushed back her hat. "Well, some of them lived, and some of them died. They knew what they were fighting for." She tapped the picture again. "You see those people there? That's James and Lily Potter."
"The Boy Who Lived's parents? Mum and Dad were friends with them?"
"The very same. You know, you're the same age as Harry Potter," Gran said. "You'll be at Hogwarts together."
"Do you think we'll be friends, too?" Neville asked.
"Oh, it wouldn't surprise me if you were, not if he's anything like his parents. They were one of the nicest couples I ever met."
"Do you think he misses his parents?" Neville asked. "I mean, he can't even go visit them."
"I'm sure he does, dear," Gran said. She patted his hand.
Neville turned to the last page in the album, pensive. He hated visiting his parents at St. Mungo's, but at least his parents were still there to visit. He thought it must be very lonely to be the Boy Who Lived.
The final picture showed his mum, looking much younger and happier than Neville had ever seen her. She was holding a smiling, round-faced baby on her lap.
"Gran, who's that?" Neville asked.
"Why, that's you, dear!" Gran said. "Your parents may not know you now, but I can assure you that they loved you very, very much."
Gran pursed her lips. "Both of your parents were so full of love. I remember when Frank first fell for your mum. He told me that he was in love with the most beautiful girl in the world." She sniffed. "I didn't believe him, of course. All young men think that their girl is the most beautiful woman in the world. And then you were born, and you looked just like your mum, and oh, then I knew exactly what he meant." Gran passed a hand across her eyes and gave Neville a slightly watery smile.
Neville reached out and closed the album. "Dad and Mum really were happy," he said.
Gran sighed. "Yes, they were. Shall we see what else is in there?"
"Yes!" Neville said.
The next thing Gran pulled out of the trunk was a pile of letters. She paged through a few of the ones on top, her eyes widening. After a moment, she blinked and stuffed the entire sheaf into her pocket. "Those were from your mother. You can read those when you're, ah, older."
Neville shrugged, turning his attention back to the trunk. "Hey, look, Gran, it's a kite!" He pulled the kite carefully from the trunk, beaming.
"So it is," Gran said. "Well, it's no Chinese Fireball, but would you like to have it?"
"Yes, please!" Neville said. "Was this Dad's, too?"
"Oh, yes. I think Aunt Enid gave it to him for his ninth birthday. May I see it?" Gran asked. She picked up the kite and inspected it carefully.
"It looks like one of the frame pieces has snapped. I daresay the wind charms could probably use a refresh, too." She handed the kite back to Neville. "I bet if you ask Aunt Enid, she'll help you get it flying again."
"Thanks, Gran!" Great Aunt Enid was a little bit scary, but she knew more about kite flying than anyone Neville knew. "So Dad would fly kites with Great Aunt Enid, too?"
"Oh, sometimes," Gran said. "Your dad preferred flying broomsticks, really, but you know Enid. Crazy for her kites. Her enthusiasm is contagious."
"I like flying kites," Neville said defensively. "Great Aunt Enid told me that the Muggles discovered their electricity by flying kites."
Gran looked alarmed. "Neville, if Aunt Enid ever asks you to go fly kites during a thunderstorm, tell her no."
"Why would we fly kites in the rain?" he asked. "Did Dad do that?"
"He did once, and he nearly got zapped by some of that Muggle electricity. So just...don't. Honestly, sometimes Enid doesn't have any sense at all."
"Zapped?" Neville asked.
"Like being hexed," she said. "Very painful."
"Dad wasn't actually hit, though?"
"No, thank goodness," Gran said. "Sometimes that boy was too reckless for his own good. That's the downside to all that Gryffindor courage."
"Isn't that just being a hero?" Neville asked.
"No," Gran said sharply. "There is being reckless, and then there is having the courage of one's own convictions. They are not the same thing."
"All right," Neville said petulantly.
Gran was silent for a moment. "Well," she said eventually, "all of this excavating has made me thirsty. Shall we break into our provisions?"
"Here?" Neville asked.
"Of course!" Gran said. "It will be like a floor picnic. Accio hamper!"
The hamper slid across the floor into Gran's outstretched hands. She flipped the lid back, handed Neville one of the sandwiches and opened the bottle of lemonade. They ate in silence. Neville kept darting glances at Gran, waiting for her to resume her normal imperious demeanor. Before today, Neville never would have expected to see Gran sitting on the floor, eating a cheese sandwich. For her part, Gran looked lost in thought, staring off into the middle distance as she ate.
When Neville finished his sandwich, he put the wrapper back in the hamper and looked up at Gran. "Can we see what else is in the trunk?"
Gran shook her head and blinked, startled. She favored Neville with a bright, unnatural-looking smile. "Of course."
Neville shifted aside more wadded-up parchments and emerged with a pair of ice skates. "Dad ice skated?" Neville asked.
Gran snorted, sounding more like herself. "Not very well. I think those are your mother's." She smiled faintly. "I remember when Alice tried to teach your dad to ice skate," Gran said. "My Frank was an excellent flier, but he wasn't particularly graceful on the ice. In the end, I think he ended up putting a levitation charm on himself to stay upright whenever they would go skating. Alice did love to skate."
Neville blinked. "You can do that? The levitation charm, I mean."
Gran laughed. "It's not the best option, but it seemed to work at the time. Of course, your mum was a bit put out when she realized that's what he'd been doing."
"I probably wouldn't be very good at ice skating," Neville said.
"No, probably not," Gran said. "But who knows, maybe you inherited the ability from Alice."
"Maybe we could try it sometime," Neville suggested.
"I'm quite sure that I would be hopeless at it," Gran said. "But we'll see."
"You could put levitation charms on us," Neville said.
"Or I could feed you a steady diet of Fizzing Whizbees," Gran said. "The effect would be the same, and if that's what you're after, then there's no reason to bother with skates in the first place."
Neville dropped the subject, since it was clearly making her grumpy. "It's your turn to take something out of the trunk," he said.
Gran rummaged in the trunk for a minute. "Oh," she said. She sat back on her heels, a small oblong box in her hands. "I hadn't realized this was in there."
"What is it, Gran?" Neville asked.
"It's your father's wand," she said. She opened the box and pulled out the wand. "Neville, this will be yours when you go to Hogwarts."
Neville nodded, eyes wide.
"I will expect you to take very good care of this. Frank had this wand from the time he was eleven years old until he went into St. Mungo's." Gran handed the wand to Neville. "This wand is your father's legacy, and it will be yours to carry on."
"Did he use this wand when You-Know-Who's bad guys came for him and Mum?" Neville imagined himself in his father's place, holding off the Death Eater hordes with just the wand in his hand. His fingers trembled.
"He didn't have his wand on him when they found him after the attack," Gran said quietly. "Either he was disarmed, or You-Know-Who's followers caught him without it. Knowing your father, I'd wager they managed to disarm him somehow."
"It wasn't enough," Neville said, looking down at the wand in disgust.
"Your parents were outnumbered and under attack from some of the most vicious witches and wizards in Britain," Gran said. "Your father defied You-Know-Who himself with that wand; I should think it would be good enough for you."
"Dad faced down You-Know-Who?" Neville asked, shocked. He'd never heard that before.
"Three times," Gran said. "Your parents were remarkable people. They stood against You-Know-Who because they knew that what he preached was dangerous and wrong. Not everyone would do that. Too many people would stand idly by, because they were afraid."
She took the wand back from him. "That's what real courage is," Gran continued. "It's being able to still take action even when you're scared to death."
Neville imagined his father again, dueling against You-Know-Who with shaking hands. He swallowed. "Maybe--maybe we should put it back in the box for now."
Gran nodded. "You'll use it when you're ready." She slid the wand back into the box. "We'll bring this down with us. It deserves better than to be tucked away in some dusty old attic."
"All right," Neville said, subdued.
"Good," Gran said. "One more artifact before we call it a day?"
Neville reached into the trunk again with some trepidation, and pulled out a shoebox. "More skates?" he asked.
"I don't know," Gran said. "Open it and see."
Neville tugged off the lid. "Sweets," he said, puzzled. "Or, sweets wrappers, rather."
Gran's forehead wrinkled. "I have no idea what that's about," she said. She picked out one of the wrappers. "Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. They must be Alice's, but I've no idea why she'd keep them."
Neville inspected another wrapper, which was folded intricately. He squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger until the sides popped out. "It's like a little paper balloon. There's more," he said, pointing. "That one's a star, and I think that Honeydukes wrapper is a really squashed bird. There's dozens of them in here."
Gran shook her head. "How odd. Anyway, I think this is enough for one day." She clutched the box with his father's wand tightly in one hand. "We should go get cleaned up now." She picked up the hamper and headed for the stairs.
"Yes, Gran," Neville said. He stood up to follow her, then stopped. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gum wrapper that his mother had handed him that morning. It was creased from where she had been folding it, but he couldn't tell what shape she had been trying to form. He wondered if he could turn it into one of those little paper balloons.
"Neville? Are you coming?"
"Just a minute!" Neville called. He folded the wrapper neatly in half and placed it carefully in the shoebox. With a small smile, tucked the shoebox under his arm and followed Gran downstairs.
There was an excellent hiding spot for the box in the wardrobe in the third-floor spare bedroom. Artifacts need to be researched, after all.