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Neville Longbottom [Harry Potter] (not_nobody) wrote in expresslogs,
@ 2012-08-18 12:36:00

Entry tags:

!dice, lily luna potter, {neville longbottom

WHO: Neville Longbottom and Lily Luna Potter (!dice)
WHAT: Neville is spending some times with the plants in the indoor observation car, and runs into one of his future students
WHEN: Saturday morning
WHERE: Indoor observation car
WARNINGS: TBD

Neville had taken to getting up early in the mornings and making his way down to the indoor observation car. He'd discovered, a few weeks prior, that someone had planted a small herb garden there, and even though they weren't magical plants, he found a certain peace in tending to them. Weeding. Trimming. Watering. Giving them the attention they needed to prosper. And he was pleased to see, as he entered the car today, that they were flourishing under his care.

A smile crossed his face as he went to them again, running a finger over their tiny leaves, talking to them softly, gently. They never spoke back (as magical plants sometimes did...and they weren't always incredibly polite about it, either), but it brought him a sort of peace.

He'd never been particularly good with people. Shy by nature, his grandmother's grief for the loss of his father had tried to force him to be someone he wasn't, making him even less comfortable in his own skin than he would have normally been. He wasn't his father...and he never would be. At Hogwarts, even his professors had occasionally found it appropriate to tease him - even the ones who weren't cruel to him like Snape had been.

Plants, though, seemed to like him, and he had a particularly good hand with them.

So engrossed was he with his tending that he didn't hear the door open behind him.

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not_nobody
2012-08-19 05:10 pm UTC (link)

Neville jumped a little at her voice - he hadn't heard her coming. Nonetheless, he turned his head and gave her a rather shy smile. He'd seen her posting on the network, of course - she seemed to do it rather a lot. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but it wasn't really his particular cup of tea. He preferred to stay under the radar as much as possible.

Harry's daughter, if he remembered correctly. It was still strange for him to imagine that Harry had a daughter.

"Oh, uh. Morning. Lily, right?"

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-19 10:09 pm UTC (link)

"Potter not Evans," she agreed to his question. Though really, if he knew her enough to guess her name, he had to have an idea which one she was. So she shrugged one shoulder in what passed for an apology for the unneeded clarification.

She bit absently at her lower lip, and while she was interested in finding Tristan or Marvel, she didn't think it would kill her to try to chat with Neville.

"So ... did anyone mention ... y'know. Your future? I mean, where you are in my time? I know some people don't want to know -- like Dorny -- so I just didn't want to start talking and have something slip if you'd rather not hear it." Of course, if he didn't want to know, she guessed she'd just default the conversation to the train, the scenery, prior stops ... whatever else wasn't their future.

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not_nobody
2012-08-20 03:54 am UTC (link)

"Yeah, kind of. Harry told me I teach Herbology at Hogwarts. I...I guess you're probably one of my students, huh?"

She was Harry's daughter, after all, which made her about the right age. He smiled a little, nervously as he turned his attention back to the plants, as if they made him a lot more comfortable than she did. After a moment, though, he turned back to her. He wasn't that much of a coward, even if this was incredibly strange.

"And Luna told me I was happy."

He shrugged. At one time in his life he'd wondered if he'd had feelings for Luna himself, but he found that her happiness didn't bring him any sadness or jealousy. He was just happy for her.

"But...yeah, other than that, I don't know much. Harry didn't know where I lived, or anything like that. I assume at Hogwarts, since that's where the professors generally live, right?"

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-20 11:59 am UTC (link)

"Yes," she replied. "All seven years of it," she replied. Which wasn't to say she was any good at it, but it wasn't her worst subject, either. She very nearly mentioned Dorny's future professorship, but opted not to. If it did get around to Jaime, Lily didn't want to be the one responsible for telling. So the people who knew, knew, and she wasn't going to bother telling anyone else who might tell someone who'd tell her.

She shrugged when he mentioned being happy. She wouldn't know, honestly. He'd always seemed content enough to her, when she'd seen him outside of class. "You were happy in class," she replied. "That was ... mostly really the only time I ever saw you."

Another shrug lifted her shoulders. "Dunno where you lived over summer, but I guess probably there, yeah," she agreed. Where did professors live over the summer? Did they have crazy parties in the school when the kids weren't there? She regarded him for a moment. "Anyway, you're a good professor. Even the kids that don't have much of an interest in plants like your classes."

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not_nobody
2012-08-21 02:08 pm UTC (link)

"Well...I probably learned enough from bad professors" - and he pointedly didn't mention Snape, although the name hung almost tangibly in the air - "and I'm probably easy," he said with a shy smile.

Turning back to the girl, he shoved his hands into his pockets, looking at her for a moment, trying to square the fact that this girl appeared to be approximately his age with the fact that she was actually more than twenty years younger than he was. A student. Harry's daughter.

It was strange, very strange. And awkward.

Just like the first thing that came to mind, and he blurted out without thinking.

"Did you know I went to the Yule Ball with your mum?"

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-22 01:22 am UTC (link)

"You were quick enough to hand out detentions to me," Lily replied, her brows lifting. Though ... so was every professor there. Even Dorny. Which would never stop being weird to her. "Not ... that I didn't deserve them," she admitted. "But I spent as much time there as anywhere else," she continued. It wasn't that she was bad, exactly, but she'd been prone to giving into bad decisions. And she was really bad about getting caught -- and the staff had caught on early enough she liked to lie her way out of things.

Her brows lifted slightly, and she worked through her memories to see if that was something she'd been told. "Think they mentioned that, yeah," Lily agreed.

"Makes you wonder what would've happened if you'd wound up dating her 'stead of my da' dating her," she speculated. She wondered if she could see that, and then she wondered if Neville would want to know specifics about his future. Most people didn't, and Lily had just gotten to a point of respecting that.

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not_nobody
2012-08-22 02:21 pm UTC (link)

"Sounds like you take after your dad in that," he grinned. Harry had always seemed to be getting detentions - although he rarely actually deserved them. Well, maybe he did most of the time.

Still, he couldn't really see himself giving out detentions like candy. He didn't see himself as a rule enforcer, exactly.

"So...what did I give you detention for, anyway?"

He shrugged at her "what-if."

"Nah, Ginny and I weren't meant to be, I knew that. But it was nice to be able to take someone to the Yule Ball. I wasn't actually sure that I'd find a partner at all. I wasn't exactly Mr. Popular."

He shrugged, wondering for a moment how his future would go. Luna had been a good friend, and for a while he'd entertained the idea of dating her - but obviously that hadn't worked out. And he was glad that Luna was happy. He figured he'd be happy enough at Hogwarts, with his plants and his teaching, if it came to that.

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-23 12:09 am UTC (link)

"Talking, mostly. I had this problem through my third and fourth years mostly where my mouth couldn't seem to stop, and usually what I had to say was more interesting to me than what the professor had to say. They never agreed ..." And funnily enough, the detentions hadn't really helped curb her problem. It had just tapered off after she'd gotten into Quidditch. Probably because she was too tired to talk.

Lily shrugged a little. She wasn't sure she believed in fate and things like that. "Being popular isn't ... all that," she said. She liked to think she was fairly popular in school, and only some of that notoriety was because of her big brothers and family. She'd done a decent job of making her own mark.

"But ..." Lily shrugged again. "I mean, you made up for it? You're one of the favorite professors."

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not_nobody
2012-08-23 10:07 pm UTC (link)

"Ah, yeah, I can see why they wouldn't," he said with a soft grin. "And anyway, if you don't pay attention in herbology - or in any class, really, you could end up getting hurt. Not all of that stuff is safe, you know. Some of it's even deadly."

Brilliant, he sounded like a professor already, and he was nineteen years old.

"No, I mean, I don't resent it. Not any more. I am who I am, and I'm proud of the ways in which I was able to help Harry at the end."

At the end. At the end of what? The end of the world that they had grown up in? The end of innocence? He didn't know what, and the reason he had worded it that way seemed to be something more...profound than he wanted to get into right at the moment.

"I don't need to be popular. But I'm glad people like my classes."

This actually made him smile broadly, the thought that perhaps he could make herbology interesting.

"So what is your favorite subject?"

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-24 12:34 am UTC (link)

Her brows lifted slightly as he went on in a voice that sounded like he was going to start in on a lecture. "Right. I've heard as much." Repeatedly, in a variety of phrases and tones, and voices, as different professors attempted to pound that particular lesson into her head.

Lily nodded. She'd had to actually find a history book to get some of the details -- her father hadn't been forthcoming with a lot of it -- but she knew the highlights. "I read about that," she replied. "Pretty impressive, really," she said without any indication of flattery or falseness -- because it was impressive.

"Transfiguration because I don't suck at it. Defense for the same reason. I hate potions," she added. Honestly, potions had to be the dullest class on the planet, but she'd taken all seven years of it just in case she wanted to follow a path that required it.

"Besides Herbology, what was yours?"

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not_nobody
2012-08-24 01:40 am UTC (link)

"Well, apparently you survived, even if you didn't listen," he said with a smile, only very gently scolding.

"About the Battle of Hogwarts," he said - a statement, not a question. "It was...terrible."

She'd read about it. Read about it. He could still smell the smoke, hear the screams of the dying and wounded, see Voldemort's terrible face as he tried to recruit him to his side.

As if he would ever...

"I did what I had to do," he said with a humble shrug. "Harry needed me to come through - everyone did. Everyone has their moment of bravery, I think."

He knew that what he'd done was important, but it didn't make him feel that way. He'd just been in the right place at the right time, and for some reason had been able to pull the sword of Godric Gryffindor out of a hat. In retrospect, the part that moved him the most, that made him most proud was the fact that he'd obviously been proven worthy of his house, after all those years of feeling he'd been mishoused.

"Defense against the Dark Arts," he said. "When it wasn't Snape's. And I guess...mainly when it was Harry. Your dad...the reason I was ever able to do anything was because of him, and Dumbledore's Army."

It had given him all the confidence he had never had.

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-24 02:43 am UTC (link)

Lily couldn't relate. At all. She'd grown up in a time of peace, of happiness, with her family intact and unharmed. War stories were just that -- stories. They were things in her past that weren't real to her the way they were real to the people who'd lived through them. She knew they were events that had happened, but she couldn't completely understand the reality of it. Not that she meant any disrespect, and she did try to understand ... but it was beyond the scope of her reality.

"I suppose," she replied in regard to a moment of bravery. She couldn't recall any particular instances in which she'd been particularly brave, but she also didn't have a war in her time.

"You had a different professor every year for that, didn't you? That was the time when it was cursed." Lily shifted her weight. "I only had two," she admitted. "One up through my fifth year, and a different one for my last two."

All things considered, Lily still wasn't at a point where she was interested in hearing any praise for her father. She was still sore about the whole punching thing, and would be until he fixed it. If nothing else, she'd inherited her relatives amazing ability to hold grudges. So she simply nodded to acknowledge what Neville had to say on the topic of her father.

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not_nobody
2012-08-24 02:36 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah, I did. First year it was Professor Quirrel, then Professor Lockhart, then Professor Lupin...and fake Professor Moody, and then Umbridge, Snape and that wretched Carrow. He was the worst, of course, worse even than Umbridge or Snape, or even Quirrel with Voldemort under his turban. Your parents never had him, though, that's the year they were out destroying Horcruxes. I...kind of led a little rebellion against the Carrows, though, and I've still got some of the scars to prove it. I don't know why they didn't just kill me sometimes, unless it was because I'm pureblood or something ridiculous like that."

He shook his head at the memory, remembering that as the year - and the time - that he'd really learned to stand up for himself, and for others. At least as well as he ever would.

"Guess Dark Arts aren't as important in your day, though. Which is good."

He raised an eyebrow at her with a slight smile.

"So what is it that you do? You're out of Hogwarts now, right?"

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-25 01:15 am UTC (link)

Lily's brows arched again. "My mum was at school," she pointed out. Or she had been for a bit of it. Lily was fairly certain they'd gone into hiding at some point during that mess. Depending on who was telling the story, the details varied from telling to telling, and of course things like that didn't make it into the books.

Still, it was interesting to hear Neville talking about it. It had been infinitely more recent for him, after all.

She shrugged slightly. "Depends on what you want to do. Witches and wizards didn't stop practicing Dark Arts just because Voldemort's gone. So Aurors and stuff still need to have a good basis in them."

Lily shook her head and shrugged again. "I hadn't decided. Hugo and I were supposed to tour around Europe and see if we could figure out what we wanted to do. I didn't really have any ideas. Dunno what I'm really suited for, honestly. I don't have any interest in working as an Auror or a hit or really anything to do with the Ministry. I thought about experimental charms or something, but ..." Lily glanced to the side. "I dunno. It just sounds like more work than I want. I'm not good enough for a quidditch team professionally, and I'm not much for the writing aspect of journalism.

"I figure I'll find something, sooner or later, or my parents will kick me out, yeah?" She grinned, and she doubted that ... but still, she would eventually start to feel lazy if she didn't get some sort of job.

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not_nobody
2012-08-25 04:13 am UTC (link)

"I didn't really know what I wanted to do, either," he said, hoping this could get them off the topic of the war. It made him exceedingly uncomfortable to talk about it, as it brought back the pain of all those they had lost, and all the terrible memories of the day he had come face to face with Voldemort.

"I was an Auror of sorts - I mean, not really, but I helped Kingsley out at the ministry in the immediate aftermath of the War - but I knew that wasn't what I was good at, or what I really wanted to do. I didn't feel that I was good at much at all. I'm glad to hear from you and Harry and Luna that I find something in the future and settle down."

He smiled at her a little nervously.

"So, uh, I guess the question is, what do you like to do? What makes you happy?"

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-25 05:18 am UTC (link)

Lily nodded slightly. It had been different for people back then, she guessed. When he was her age. Which was still weird to think about, even if he was standing right there in front of her, about her age.

She snorted slightly at his question, and honestly, it was on the tip of her tongue to inform him exactly what made her happy -- but that was just an awkward topic to get into with a future professor. Even if he wouldn't remember if he ever went home.

"I dunno," she admitted. "I mean,I'm still kind of venturing around a few ideas. I know what I don't like, but I dunno what I'm passionate enough about to make a career out of it.

"I mean, things like cursebreaking and whatever sound very interesting, but I dunno that it's really for me. There was an internship for the zoo in September I was thinking about, but ..." Lily shrugged one shoulder. "I hadn't gotten around to applying for it."

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not_nobody
2012-08-25 02:50 pm UTC (link)

Neville nodded slightly, understanding to an extent where she was coming from. Although he had developed a passion for herbology while at Hogwarts, he had never been quite sure what he could do with that. And there were so many wizarding jobs that he didn't feel that he could do...

But he supposed it was different for Lily. The world was such a different place, and her days at Hogwarts...it had just been school. Maybe she was looking for the excitement that he was tired of by the time he graduated. Maybe peace and settling down weren't things she was looking for.

"You'll find something," he said with a shrug. "And I'm sure your parents won't kick you out if you don't."

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the_lily_luna
2012-08-25 11:02 pm UTC (link)

"Probably not," she agreed. Her mum might threaten it, but she knew her da' never would let it happen. And if it did, she could always move in with Jamie or Albie for a little while -- by the time she ever got kicked out, she was sure they'd have flats of their own, and she couldn't see them turning her away.

Even if they did, she had a boat load of cousins to turn to.

"But ... I'm sure eventually something will speak to me. Or I'll start somewhere at some job at random and eventually work my way into a place where I want to spend my days working." She reasoned, too, she'd have a better time of it if some of her family was there as well. She guessed the odds were better she'd stick with a job if someone like Hugo was around to work with.

Since the conversation was sort of petering out, and she was interested in finding Tris or Marvel -- or both of them -- she cocked her head toward the door. "It was nice chatting with you," she replied -- which it had been. "See you 'round?"

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