[Children of the Sun series]: The Secrets of Longbottom Manor, gen, PG-13, 4/4
Part Three.
Title: The Secrets of Longbottom Manor (4/4)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: None, gen
Content Notes: AU, familiars, angst, mentions of the canon fate of the Longbottoms
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Staying at Longbottom Manor for Christmas with his new guardian Augusta Longbottom, Harry can’t help observing some of the problems that Neville has-and trying to help.
Author’s Notes: This is part of my “Children of the Sun” series, and follows Silver Shadow Snake. This will be a short part that covers Christmas of Harry’s first year.
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last part of “The Secrets of Longbottom Manor,” but the larger series will continue beyond this.
Part Four
“Harry, wake up! It’s Christmas morning!”
Harry opened his eyes, and blinked at Neville. Then he grinned. He almost hadn’t recognized him at first. Neville’s face was glowing with a big, bright smile. Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen him look like that.
“And look!” Neville thrust his wand out in front of him. There was a bright sparkle burning on the end, and as Harry watched, it leaped off and traced a looping circle around the room. Trevor croaked, and Golden slithered down from Harry’s bed to loop his neck and follow the spiral.
“That’s a spell people use to get their familiars to exercise. I could never do it before.”
“Good for you, Neville,” Harry told his friend. “I’ll get dressed and come right down. Are we having breakfast first, or opening presents, or what?”
“Breakfast first. In the formal dining room.” Neville rolled his eyes, and Harry laughed. He didn’t think Neville would have done that a few days ago either. “Gran insists. But it’s a huge breakfast, and it has all my favorite food! Did you tell the house-elves what you wanted so they could make it for you?”
“Oh, that’s why that house-elf popped up in my bedroom last night! Yeah, I did.”
Neville grinned. “Good. Then there’ll probably be lots of treacle tart.” He laughed and retreated out the bedroom door while Harry looked around for a big soft pillow to throw at him.
Harry got dressed in a pair of comfortable green robes that he’d bought in Diagon Alley when he and Hagrid first went there in the summer, and then went downstairs. He remembered the way to the formal dining room, but that was almost unrecognizable when he stepped into it, too.
“Happy Christmas, Mr. Potter.”
Mrs. Longbottom was sitting at the head of the table with Signora on a perch next to her. She looked uncomfortable, but also like she wasn’t going to scold Neville. Harry beamed at her and said, “Happy Christmas!” Then he sat down at the chair that was already pulled out for him, looking curiously at the chair next to him. He didn’t see any people in the room other than him and Mrs. Longbottom and Neville.
“I thought your familiar might want a chair for the Christmas feast.”
Harry beamed even harder at her. “He’d like that, thank you, Mrs. Longbottom.” He patted the chair, and Golden climbed up the leg and draped himself across the cushion. That put his face right up next to the feast of eggs and sausages and treacle tart and ham, which was what crowded this part of the table. Golden’s tongue darted out eagerly, and he looked as if he would bite into the ham any second.
“Wait. Be polite,” Harry told him, and Golden twisted his neck but put his tongue back in his mouth.
Neville was sitting across from him, with Trevor in front of a small plate that was covered with squirming worms and insects. “Gran is going to make a toast,” he told Harry, just as three silver goblets popped into being on the table, one near each of the humans’ plates.
“I do this every year,” Mrs. Longbottom said, picking up her goblet. Harry picked his up and looked curiously into it. It was a steaming, sweet-smelling drink that was amber in color. He thought it might be mulled cider. “And usually, my toast is the same every year.” She paused.
Neville had tensed up again. Harry narrowed his eyes. I hope she isn’t going to say that her toast is to hope Neville gets more magic, or anything like that.
“This time, I have a new toast to make.” Mrs. Longbottom lifted her goblet high. For a second, Harry thought there were snakes twisting around the edges of it, and then realized they were just circular patterns of jewels. Stop seeing snakes in everything, he chided himself, and picked up his own goblet.
“To Harry Potter, who has brought new magic into our lives that was much needed.” Mrs. Longbottom’s face was serious, like she wasn’t joking. “And to my grandson Neville, who is growing up.”
She raised the goblet higher still. Harry strained to get his as high; Neville, who was a little taller than him, had an easier time. Which the goblets more or less formed a triangle, there was a sharp chiming note, like they’d all managed to clink them together.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Longbottom said to Harry. “You made me rethink some things that I would never have thought of if not for you.” She tipped her goblet back and drank deep.
Harry, amazed, hardly tasted the drink for a second, and then he coughed a little. Yeah, it was hot cider.
He put down the cup and began to scoop various things onto his plate. Neville, his eyes huge, handed him the same plate of cut potatoes twice, and Harry grinned at him and held onto it for a second before he passed it back. He could see why Neville would be stunned.
Things had changed. Harry hadn’t expected that to happen, not so soon. But he was glad it had. It meant that he might have a chance to change other things, and make Mrs. Longbottom an ally, instead of an enemy.
And he might not have to leave and find some other place to live, after all. That would be welcome.
*
“These are for you, Harry.”
Harry darted a glance at Mrs. Longbottom, but she was serious as she waved her wand and a huge pile of gifts floated towards him. “I-you didn’t need to do all this for me,” he said.
“I didn’t do all of it.” Mrs. Longbottom inclined her head in the same way Signora did, and her face was fierce and her nose looked like an eagle’s beak. “Some of them are from your friends at Hogwarts, and some are from Neville, and some are from anonymous well-wishers. I’ve made sure that none of them contained anything harmful.”
Harry shook his head in wonder. He just hadn’t thought she would do that for him. “Thank you, Mrs. Longbottom.”
Mrs. Longbottom darted a glance at him, but didn’t say anything. She let Harry open his gifts, and Neville, while she sipped hot chocolate and watched them.
Harry had books. So many books! Apparently those people who didn’t really know him well and just thought they should send gifts to someone with a gold familiar mostly chose books. There were histories of magic, and histories of goblin wars, and histories of wars with the Muggles. There were books on curses and hexes and how to make wards and how to brew potions. There were handsome blank journals for writing in, and books about laws, and children’s fairy tales, and “common knowledge” books on things like how familiars came to be and how Apparition worked.
Golden leaned over Harry’s shoulder as he opened ones of the books about familiars. He darted his tongue in amusement. Harry chuckled and patted his head.
“What is it?” Mrs. Longbottom asked, leaning forwards.
“Golden is just amused at some of the things wizards believe about familiars,” Harry said, tucking away the book. “They’re not true.”
“If they were not true, would not familiars have told us before this?”
Harry gave her a thoughtful look. “Some people don’t want to listen to familiars. Others don’t want to talk to their wizards. I think it helps that I’m a Parselmouth, and Golden wants to make sure that I don’t do stupid things with my power. We talk to each other a lot.”
Mrs. Longbottom’s jaw clenched for a moment. “I see. What is one of the things that we get wrong?”
“That familiars are always the same from life to life,” Harry said, opening one of Neville’s presents. It was a tiny glass box filled with soil, with a little pouch of seeds next to it, and written instructions. Harry beamed at him. “Like a garden that I can keep on the table next to my bed? Thanks, Neville!”
Neville smiled at him and opened a box of chocolates that it looked like Cedric Diggory had got him.
“From life to life?”
“Yes, familiars reincarnate,” Harry sad, and frowned at the book that Hermione had got him. When he flipped through it, it looked like it was blank except for a line that ran all across the middle of all the pages. He would have to ask her what it was for. Very short journal entries, maybe? “And sometimes they’re silver, and sometimes gold, and sometimes tin, and so on. It has to do with what their wizards need in those lives. That’s what Golden says, anyway.”
Mrs. Longbottom was quiet. Harry opened more gifts, laughing when he saw the one Ron had got him: a small pamphlet designed to persuade people to play Quidditch. Ron always wished that Harry was more interested in Quidditch than he was.
Harry just didn’t know when he would have time. Keeping up with classwork and helping people and listening to familiars and testifying in Dumbledore’s trial and the Dursleys’ trial had eaten up all his time this term.
“Then one familiar might be silver in one lifetime and tin in another?” Mrs. Longbottom whispered finally.
“Yes.” Harry eyed a heavy package in black paper. It was so square that he wondered if it was a stack of books. He kind of hoped not. The tag said it was from Professor Snape, and Harry hated to think of the professor spending all that money on him.
“I had never heard of this.”
“Not many people have.” Harry snapped the string on the package and opened it. It turned out to be a box after all, a heavy ebony one that Harry sat admiring for a minute. There was a complex lock on the front of it. He turned it around and saw that it had a note on it. He turned the note so he could look at it.
This box will keep safe anything that you put into it. It belonged to your mother, who left it in my guardianship after we had our falling-out. Press your thumb to the lock and allow it to take a drop of blood and a scale from Golden.
Harry stared in wonder. Well, he hadn’t thought Professor Snape had anything like that. He’d have to talk to him about his mum. Harry didn’t know a lot about her other than her name and that she was pretty and kind and had a silver dolphin named Serena for a familiar. He probably knew more about Aunt Petunia than he did about his own mum. That was kind of depressing. He put the box gently aside.
He opened the last gift. This one was from Mrs. Longbottom. Harry turned his head a little to the side to look at it, and Golden turned his with Harry. It was a book, but it looked like an old one. It had a rising sun on the front, and the title, with no author listed, said, The Mechanics of Power.
“Thank you, Mrs. Longbottom. But what is it?”
Mrs. Longbottom grunted a little and stood up from her chair, holding her arm out so that Signora flapped to it from her perch. “It’s the collected wisdom of a fifteenth-century witch called Cassandra Black. She had a golden familiar-a bull-and she was something of a seer. She looked for Muggle wisdom to include in the book as well. You’ll need it if you intend to be involved in political reform.”
Harry blinked a little, then nodded, and glanced over in time to see Neville open the gift his grandmother had got him. Neville’s mouth hung a little open. Harry thought the gardening gloves he pulled out of the box were very nice, but they didn’t look hideously expensive.
“Gran?” Neville whispered.
“You’re not your father,” Mrs. Longbottom said abruptly, her fingers rubbing back and forth on her elbow. Signora dipped her beak and made soft yelping noises, nibbling at her witch’s fingers. “I should have seen that long since. He’s not coming back. You’re good at Herbology. You’ll be a good gardener. Seems a shame not to give you those things you need to be good at it.”
Neville sniffled a little, and Trevor opened his mouth but made no sound. Mrs. Longbottom swept out of the room. “Lunch!” she called commandingly over her shoulder.
Harry leaned towards Neville again. “Your grandmother never supported you being good at plants?”
Neville sniffled again and wiped some tears from his eyes. “No. She said I had to be good at Transfiguration and Charms and Defense like my dad.” He gave Harry a shaky smile. “She hasn’t changed all the way, maybe, but she’s changed a little. That’s good, right?”
“It’s wonderful,” Harry said, and then he wrapped his arm around his foster brother’s shoulders, letting Trevor jump up on his arm, and Golden tapped his body against both their legs to let them know he was there. “Come on, I want to eat lunch.”
“Happy Christmas, Harry.”
The whisper was so soft that Harry thought he wouldn’t have heard it if he was a few centimeters further away. He smiled. “Happy Christmas, Neville.”
The End.
Chapter One of A Door Into Hope.
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