leo moore | neville longbottom. (longbottomed) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-03-17 00:38:00 |
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It had been a great weekend so far, Leo reflected. Most weekends we good by default of being the weekend, but this one had been particularly great and he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Catching a show in New York wasn’t out of the ordinary for him. Based on his career thus far and the friends that he’d made, he was more often turning down opportunities than accepting them, and he and Abby were no strangers to weekends spent in hotels thanks to her frequent travel over the past several years. This weekend was special, there was no denying that, but it wasn’t unusual. And yet it felt different, like something had shifted in their peripherals and he was aware of it even if he couldn’t see it. Leo shifted onto his side, the soft sheets shifting away from him as he curved his body around his wife’s and wrapped an arm around her middle to pull her closer to him. He closed his eyes as dipped his chin and pressed a kiss to the bare skin of her shoulder and then another behind her ear. He’d fix the sheets later when he got too cold but, for the moment, everything was perfect. Brushing his nose against her ear, Leo settled in and let himself drift off into a tentative, comfortable sleep. ”Neville Franklin Longbottom.” Neville looked up from where he sat on the kitchen floor, a plate of what had once been pumpkin pasties in front of him and his face and fingers covered in crumbs and the sweet filling of the baked goods he’d eaten. His grandmother stormed across the kitchen, wrapping her hand firmly around his arm as she pulled him up to his feet. “What did I tell you about climbing on the counters, Neville?” Looking properly cowed, Neville glanced between the counter and his grandmother and shook his head. “But I didn’t--” “And what did I tell you about eating between your meals? You’ll never fit into Frank’s old clothes at this rate,” she huffed. It wasn’t the first time in his nearly six years that Neville had been told he’d failed to live up to his father’s memory. He was still too young to understand what that meant other than the fact that it meant Augusta Longbottom’s disappointment. “But, Grandmother, I--” She shook her head and pushed him toward the hallway, toward the staircase. “Go on, now. Get upstairs and clean yourself up. And next time I catch you climbing the counters in search of a snack, I’ll box your ears.” Neville hunched his shoulders and hung his head as he turned to head up the stairs. He ought to have been less surprised that she wouldn’t listen to him because she never did. He’d thought she’d have been happy that he’d gotten the pumpkin pasties down from the counter. After all, he hadn’t had to climb anything to get them. “Neville Franklin Longbottom!” Neville cringed at the use of his full name. In his eleven years of experience, he’d found that nothing good ever followed the use of it. He came bounding down the stairs to find his grandmother waiting for him, already dressed in all of her terrifying glory. “Neville, did you pack your books?” Paling, Neville turned around and ran back up the stairs, returning a few minutes later carrying a large stack of his first year textbooks. His grandmother flicked her wand and the books flew from his arms to the trunk and he realized too late that she’d expected him to do something similar despite the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be doing magic as an underage wizard. She’d told him the week before that his father had learned how to do summoning charms when he was ten (though Neville was unsure of the validity of this statement). She sighed. “Did you remember to pack underwear?” Neville ran back up the stairs and, as he hit the top stair, his grandmother called after him, “And don’t forget your toad, Neville Longbottom!” He’d had to make four more trips up the stairs, much to the increasing exasperation of his grandmother, before he was ready to leave for the the train. He was pretty sure he’d forgotten at least another dozen items, things that even his grandmother hadn’t thought about, but as he reached his hand into his robes and brushed his fingers over the wand in the inside pocket, he knew it didn’t matter. He’d remembered the most important thing. Well, one of the two most important things. Nestled safely in the bottom of his trunk was a small box full of tiny blowing gum wrappers, so whatever else he’d forgotten, he’d remembered to bring his parents with him to Hogwarts. Leo stirred, momentarily unsure of why he was back in bed when he was supposed to be boarding the Hogwarts Express. Had he forgotten to wake up? His brow stitched together as he blinked a few times, letting awareness of his surroundings come back to him as he did so. He was back in the hotel room in New York, his arm wrapped around his wife’s waist, while they slept curled up together beneath sheets tucked tightly around them. He started, glancing down at the sheets that had been pulling off on him when he’d fallen asleep. Had Abby woken up and tucked them both in? That didn’t seem likely considering she was still asleep in the same position she’d been when he’d drifted off. It was probably him, he told himself. He must have woken up without realizing it and adjusted the sheets. After all, Leo assumed it wouldn’t have taken long for him to get cold without the cover. It didn’t make sense, not really, but what other explanation was there for it? He wasn’t a wizard, after all, not even a mediocre one like his counterpart, a fact that Augusta Longbottom never lost an opportunity to remind Neville of. No, Leo was not a wizard. And magic, obviously, most certainly did not exist. |