InsaneJournal

A gift for catgoddess! (Part 2 of 4)
PART TWO

Neville pulled out a quill, ink and some parchment – which was slightly tattered, but he'd find some of better-quality to copy his writing out on once the draft was written and edited – and began to write.

There are over thirty species of magical plants native to the continent of Antarctica. A small number of them have been discovered by the Muggles, though they typically fail to notice the magical qualities of the plants in question. A few plants are even able to camouflage themselves to look like their already discovered non-magical cousins; only wizards can tell the difference, and even then it requires a certain degree of mastery in the field of Herbology. Still more of the plants are almost intelligent in nature. They have adapted over time so that only humans with inherent magic can see them, similar to wizard-constructed areas such as Diagon Alley.

Neville reread what he'd just written and groaned. It read like a textbook. And a beginner's textbook, at that. He scrunched up the piece of parchment and tossed it at the wall of the room. It fell down the far side of a particularly messy desk, potentially never to be seen again. Good riddance, Neville thought.

There was no one else in the room to scold him for littering or for disrespecting Ministry property. But then, the complete lack of anyone paying attention to him was kind of the problem.

If he was going to show up uninvited every time Neville had business related to the Ministry, Neville wished that Percy Weasley could have shown up then. At least then he'd have something to occupy his attention while he waited (for two whole hours, now) for someone within the Department for the Control and Preservation of Magical Plants (other than the extremely nervous looking witch in the corner who seemed to be so new to her job that she didn't have a clue what she was doing) to actually acknowledge his presence.

Insisting that he'd had an appointment hadn't helped matters much, unfortunately. It was like trying to get in to see a Healer; two hours of waiting for two minutes of only being half-listened to.

He'd already asked to speak to the Head of Department, or even just a member of the committee who'd initially decided to turn down his proposal. He was on the verge of leaving the Department in favour of pestering the Minister of Magic himself, but Neville doubted the Minister Burnstein would be any more likely to give him the time of day. Neville had never even heard of the man before he'd arrived back in Britain, after all.

Neville had to wait yet another half an hour before someone emerged from one of the offices.

"I'm not even all that surprised anymore," Neville muttered. He let his head fall into his hands in frustration.

He was apparently going to have to talk to Percy Weasley today after all.

"Mr Longbottom?" Percy enquired. "Still here, are you? We half-expected you'd have run off by now.

"I'm not leaving until someone talks to me," Neville insisted. "I assume that you work in this department now?"

Percy glared at him. "Yes. So I'm talking to you now, and I'm telling you to go home. The committee's already met regarding your little personal research project. They're not interested."

"How can you not be interested? The purpose of this Department is to 'preserve' magical plants, isn't it?"

"Only those that we've actually been convinced require preserving."

Neville blinked stupidly. He opened his mouth to respond, but he could think of nothing to say. Even if he could have, he wasn't entirely sure he could have made his tongue, which suddenly seemed too large in his mouth, move to form the words.

Percy, noting that Neville was somewhat speechless, smiled condescendingly at him.

"Don't worry yourself too much, Longbottom," he said. "It's better this way. The Ministry's time and money are better spent funding the new 'zero tolerance' scheme. Don't you think that's more worthwhile than some Muggle problem that we shouldn't even be thinking about intervening in? Don't you care about the greater good?"

Something about his cavalier attitude – and perhaps also about the way he tossed in the phrase 'the greater good' – made Neville's fist clench involuntarily, though he found that he still couldn't put his mouth to use in contradicting Percy.

Percy nodded. "I'm glad we understand each other," he said as he continued on his path out the door.

A young witch who had just emerged and taken a spot at a desk in the corner graced him why a look of sympathy. Neville decided that that only made him feel all the more pathetic.

He was sick of being pathetic.

"You lot didn't even consider my proposal. I didn't even submit a full written copy of my research, and I haven't ever been given a chance to make a proper oral presentation. How can you turn it down without even knowing what it is?" Neville called after Percy as he followed him out the door, letting the thick wood slam behind him.

Percy swivelled back around to raise his eyebrows at him. "Perhaps if you're that desperate for someone to believe your report, Mr Longbottom, you should submit it to the Quibbler with all the other 'research' of its calibre."

Neville couldn't remember ever punching another person in his life, or even physically attacking them in any other way. For that matter, he could barely remember winding his fist back and throwing it at Percy, either. But he did remember hearing the bang as Percy's back hit the corridor wall.

Percy brought his hand up to his chin with a pained expression. Neville's knuckles throbbed in sympathy.

"No one's hit me since before I started at Hogwarts," Percy admitted, his voice several notches higher than usual. He looked somewhat dazed. Neville knew the feeling.

"I'm sorry," Neville said. Or rather, he tried to say that, but he found that his voice was somewhat muffled by the hard impact on his jawbone and the way his head jerked back. He thought he must be experiencing about the same amount of stunned confusion as Percy must have felt just moments ago.

Percy didn't look all that confused by then, though. He looked more wild than anything.

It wasn't a particularly hard punch. Percy probably had as little experience being on the giving end of physical violence as Neville, after all. But it still hurt, more than it perhaps should have.

"I was going to let it go," Percy said in a rush, no longer speaking with his usual level of pompousness. "It was more his fault than yours, after all, and I was willing to be the bigger man. I was trying to treat you as professionally as possible, but then you go and hit me, and it's just not on, Longbottom. You don't get to treat my sister that way and then hit me as well, as if I've done or said anything worse than you deserve."

Neville shook his head disbelievingly. "You know, whatever Harry says, you're definitely mental."

He saw the punch coming this time and turned away so that it just barely caught him on the cheekbone rather than breaking his nose.

"What is your problem?" he exclaimed.

"Don't rub it in, Longbottom. Don't you go around talking about what Potter's been saying to you like you've a right to when you … and he …"

"Percy, seriously, untangle your knickers and speak sense."

"You slept with him!" Percy burst out. "You knew he was dating my sister – don't try to say you didn't, everyone knows about them – and you helped him cheat on her anyway."

Neville sighed and clenched his teeth together in exasperation. "I knew that rumour would get around. Merlin. I didn't sleep with Harry."

Percy glared over his glasses at him, and Neville had to stop himself from cowering under that 'Prefect' look that he'd been on the receiving end of countless times at Hogwarts.

"I don't believe it. Everyone knows you're gay, and it's not as if he hasn't done it before. I gave him a chance, damn it. I didn't tell Ginny, I told him as long as he never did it again … he said he was drunk and couldn't even remember it … Bill or Charlie would have just killed him on the spot, but not me. I should have done something about it. I know that now. And now I'm done being logical about it. I'm done being nice, Longbottom."

Ah. Well that explained why Harry was so uncomfortable about the topic of Percy, and why he insisted that Percy wasn't all bad. Though honestly, Neville almost laughed at the thought of Percy ever being actually 'nice'. The closest he would ever get would be acting tolerable.

"Er, I'm sorry if you caught him cheating or whatever before, but he told me himself that he would never let him do that to Ginny again. All we did was talk. Okay, and get drunk. Mainly we got drunk. And then slept. And then had breakfast. But there was absolutely no cheating. Other than when we played Exploding Snap, that is, because Harry's …" And at that point Neville finally stopped his lips from moving and sounds from coming out without his permission. He thought the motivation to shut up may have come from the sight of Percy's face turning so red it looked practically purple (which was really quite an interesting look against his flaming hair).

Neville wanted to hit his head against something hard in that moment. Why could Percy always reduce him to a babbling second year with just one glare?

"Look, I may have slept with Harry, technically, but there was no sex, and I doubt it'll ever happen again anyway because the conversation afterwards was topped in awkwardness only by this conversation right now. And I'm leaving now before I make even more of a fool of myself in the Ministry hallways where anyone could see. I'll probably see you around the next time you randomly change jobs and I just happen to have to deal with you."

Neville started walking away, only to be stopped by Percy's voice once more.

"He really didn't have sex with you?" Percy called out loudly.

The witch walking down the hall towards him gave him a knowing look. Neville sighed.

"No, he didn't," Neville replied, turning around. ”I know it probably won't make a difference to hear it since you're her brother and its what you do, but I don't think you have to be quite so overprotective of Ginny. Harry loves her, and he'd never hurt her that way again."

As Neville left, he muttered to himself, "And now I think I may be too mortified to ever have sex with anyone again, let alone Harry, so it's all just as well, isn't it?"

* * *

Neville supposed it was also just as well he and Percy had attacked each other. At least the memory of their argument and the throbbing both in his fist and his face overshadowed the memory of the Ministry throwing over a year of research out the window due to their own stubbornness and their dislike of him personally.

He had sought to prove that while global warming might be a Muggle idea, with the way it was clearly progressing it would also affect magical flora. In this case, the capriciousness of the plants in question seemed likely to manifest itself in the plants dying off once the average temperature rose too high.

The Muggles had no idea. The Ministry of Magic apparently didn't care any more than they had when they'd refused to fund his expedition in the first place, even though he now had evidence to back up his assertions.

"Five out of the thirty-two discovered species of magical plants in Antarctica will be extinct in a few short decades."

That had been how the report would have begun. He wondered whether they would have even bothered to listen that far before turning him down, if he had been allowed in to see them.

Why had they even allowed him to make an appointment, if they had no intention of listening to him? Did they just want to see him suffer? He was starting to think that Percy did, at least.

Despite the Ministry's decision not to financially back him and his Gran's running commentaries on how it was just another way he was disappointing her, this was the first time since the possibility of the area of research had occurred to him that Neville wondered whether he'd made a mistake. Whether he'd just wasted the last year and a half and all of his parents' money that he'd spent on his research.

His study had been in place for almost a continuous year and a half. A few choice spells had meant that, unlike the Muggles, he was barely slowed down by the harsh weather in the winter months. It had seemed like a lifetime since he'd visited civilisation – any civilisation – for more than a day or two to restock his provisions. And now that he was back, he wasn't quite sure that he wanted to be.

If it weren't for the suspicion with which British wizards fleeing to other countries after the war were treated, Neville might have approached other Ministries. It was, after all, a global issue. However, he doubted that his reception in those places would be any warmer. With luck, the worst they would do would be to use his report as kindling. If he actually attempted to set foot inside their borders, though, he didn't doubt that he'd find himself nicely holed up inside one of their prisons.

Neville imagined for a moment being locked inside Numenguard. He shuddered. Azkaban had been bad enough. And he doubted that Harry would be able to save him again if he managed to land himself in prison, particularly if it was a foreign one.

Unfortunately, Neville had learned of the unwillingness of foreign wizards to associate with British citizens first hand.

Self-directed and self-funded research in the middle of nowhere had obviously not been his first career preference. He'd wanted to become an apprentice within Britain at first. But then things in his personal life had simply spiralled out of control, thanks largely to the media attention he couldn't seem to escape from, and he'd retreated to the Muggle world, where he'd taken up a job in a Muggle nursery to meet the costs so that he didn't have to draw on his inheritance. When he'd returned to the wizarding world he'd quickly realised that his short time away hadn't made the press move on so much as it had exponentially focused their attention on him in his absence. He'd tried to leave Britain, but apparently foreign masters of their fields weren't as accommodating to British potential apprentices as they once might have been.

There was a general prejudice against British wizards trying to flee to other European countries; they were generally suspected of being Death Eaters on the run. Neville had expected that much, but had tried to put his 'war hero' fame to good use for once in clearing himself of that charge. However, he hadn't expected that wizards from other countries seemed to be against sharing knowledge with British wizards in general. Neville wasn't sure whether that was because they feared another Voldemort – if that was the case, they clearly had very short memories, since Britain hardly had a trademark on producing Dark wizards. The reason didn't really matter, though. The reality had been that Neville's dream of becoming a Herbology apprentice had been impossible.

The research in Antarctica had been something of a last-ditch effort to establish himself in the field in the hope that employment might later come from that. He'd spent all his money and all his time in the pursuit of that hope.

And now that was about to end. His hopes and dreams – his life – all gone. His stay in Azkaban wouldn't be quite so temporary when it was for a charge of assault of a Ministry official rather than some ridiculous charge that barely deserved a caution.

But damned if he was going to let a little thing like life imprisonment make his efforts a complete waste.

He took Percy Weasley's advice, at least to a point. If the Ministry wouldn't listen to him, at least he could put the results of his research out into the public where someone else – someone the Ministry weren't so obviously prejudiced against – might take up the task of continuing his work.

Of course, he didn't publish it in the Quibbler, whatever Percy might think of his writing abilities and his research. As much as he liked Luna, it wasn't exactly the most respected paper around. There had been a reason he'd snapped and hit Percy over that comment, after all.

When the Journal of Potions and Herbology sent an owl back several days later, which was much sooner than he'd expected, and he supposed he probably now owed something good to his fame, at least. The letter informed him that two of his 'peers' had reviewed and affirmed the article and that it would run in the next issue, Neville decided he could now go back to Azkaban happily.

Okay, well, maybe not happily.

* * *

Several days after the incident, a photo showing Percy leaning against the wall with his fingers to his chin and Neville standing back clutching his fist in a pained sort of way featured on the front page of the Daily Prophet. The moving loop of the scene in the photograph didn't quite catch the punch itself, but what it did show was suggestive enough. Neville had no memory of the photo being taken. But then, of course, the whole hitting each other part of their confrontation had been little more than a blur to him anyway, in light of the fact that he'd had practically a whole conversation about sex with Percy Weasley. In the middle of a Ministry hallway.

The most ironic thing of all, though, was that for once the Prophet had printed an almost entirely truthful article about him, except that they hadn't mentioned Percy's own retaliation. Neville wished he could properly appreciate it.

Unfortunately, the fact that he was completely screwed seemed to have dampened his sense of humour.

'Zero tolerance', as Neville understood it, meant that even his momentary loss of temper and the following exchange of blows – which had, in fact been a two-way exchange rather than a completely unprovoked attack on Percy, and had barely damaged Percy at all anyway – might result in his imprisonment in Azkaban for a very long time.

Hell.

When Neville wasn't immediately dragged off to Azkaban by the Aurors, he was somewhat confused, but he counted his blessings for every extra day of freedom he had. When two whole weeks had passed since The Punch, Neville started to suspect that perhaps Percy was keeping him on edge on purpose, waiting for the best time to strike. As a best case scenario, Neville thought that maybe, possibly, Percy might have decided not to take advantage of the fact that the Wizengamot probably wouldn't believe Neville when he said Percy had hit him back because he was ashamed of himself. When Neville was still breathing free air when his article was published at about the three week mark, it occurred to Neville that Harry's assertions that Percy wasn't such a bad sort might actually have some substance after all. Of course, when a letter arrived four weeks after it all happened, Neville decided that some sort of practical joke was being played on him.

Mr Longbottom,

It is my sad duty to inform you that Professor Pomona Sprout has resigned quite suddenly from the position as Herbology Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for health reasons. However, when she tendered her resignation she suggested that you might replace her, having heard that you've recently returned to the country. Having read your recent submission to the Journal of Potions and Herbology I am inclined to agree with her assessment. As such, I would like to invite you to apply for the position of Herbology Professor and look forward to hearing from you no later than the 30th of June.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Headmistress

When the letter fell from Neville's fingers, he barely even noticed.

* * *

It was rather lucky that the wards around Hogwarts castle seemed almost to be intelligent in and of themselves. They may have simply stopped another man who approached the castle uninvited. Neville, though, was not only allowed to proceed, but was also met in the Entrance Hall, for the wards had obviously alerted the Headmistress to his presence. Filch didn't seem particularly impressed to be escorting Neville around the school. In fact, he didn't seem particularly impressed with Neville in general, and he made sure that Neville saw the way he looked down his long nose at the sight of him.

Filch was certainly careful to make sure Neville didn't hear the password when he spoke it to the gargoyle guarding the Head's office, as if he considered himself to be wiser than the Headmistress in determining Neville's trustworthiness. Neville restrained himself from rolling his eyes and pointing out that McGonagall wanted him as a Professor and so would hardly care if he was given the password.

He was initially glad that Filch didn't follow him up. However, when he stepped into the Headmistress's office on his own and McGonagall's eyes met his, Neville found himself longing for some kind of back-up, even if it was Filch. Those eyes, even when they weren't aimed at him in a particularly accusing way, still made Neville feel like that boy of thirteen who'd let his list of passwords into the Gryffindor dormitory fall into Sirius Black's hands.

Professor McGonagall and Percy Weasley had a lot in common, Neville realised.

Neville suddenly felt so very out of his league.

He forced himself not to cower away from her, instead stepping slightly unsteadily forward into the office.

"Mr Longbottom," McGonagall greeted. She gestured at the seat in front of her desk. "I expected to receive an owl well before you came all the way up to the school."

Neville didn't sit down. He didn't intend to be there long enough to bother with sitting, after all.

"Why did you offer me a job?"

McGonagall surveyed him seriously. "I should have thought that obvious. I have a position open and I think you're fit for the job, young and inexperienced though you may be now."

Neville rolled his eyes at her, for once too annoyed to care about showing disrespect to a teacher. "I'm a convicted criminal."

"You're a convicted rule-breaker. Your actions were not criminal. Or they wouldn't have been under a more reasonable regime, at least."

"Maybe not. But I'm about to be a convicted criminal. I assaulted Percy Weasley without real provocation. It was all over the papers. I'll be in Azkaban in no time. That'll probably clash with my teaching schedule, I'd say."

Neville thought he saw McGonagall's lips quirk into the beginnings of a smile, but they seemed to restrain themselves. "That's not the story Mr Weasley told the Ministry after the Prophet released that story. You really should take legal action for libel after all the ridiculous articles they've written about you."

"Percy was the one who told me I'd have no leg to stand on if I sued." Neville was certain he looked as stunned as he felt. "So what's Percy saying now, then?"

"He says that he hurt himself when he tripped and fell into the wall, and that you were only there with him to ask if he needed help. He refused to take Veritaserum; the right of witnesses other than suspects to refuse that is one of the few liberties the Ministry has left to us, and we may not enjoy even that for much longer, I'm sad to say. The Ministry tried to get the photographer who sold the story to the Prophet to be a witness, but she apparently didn't see what happened at all; she wouldn't admit it, but she'd clearly illegally planted a camera that took photos periodically inside that particular Ministry hallway. So you're the only witness to Mr Weasley's clumsiness, it would seem."

Neville shook his head. "You know that's not true, though. I just admitted it."

McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "Did you? I must have become temporarily deaf at just the wrong moment, then, for I heard nothing of the sort."

It was kind of scary how much like Dumbledore she seemed to be at that moment. Neville wondered if every Head of Hogwarts was at least a little bit barmy.

Of course, like so many things that Neville Longbottom thought in the privacy of his own mind, he'd never voice such a thought out loud.

"But the Ministry hates me. I'm a trouble-maker, according to them. Do you really want someone like that being a role model for hundreds of impressionable teenagers?"

"Mr Longbottom," Professor McGonagall said with a self-satisfied smile, "that is precisely the sort of person I need on my staff."

* * *

Merlin, Neville thought as he watched the students file into the Great Hall en masse. How the hell did he allow himself to be talked into this?

As he watched the Sorting begin, Neville eyed the line of first-years with some trepidation. He remember being that tiny, lining up in front of everyone while they stared at him. He certainly remembered how he'd felt even smaller again, as if he could never measure up to the expectancies he bore on his shoulders. He'd just known that he'd be Sorted into Hufflepuff, and what would his Gran say then?

Now, though, it clearly wasn't Hufflepuff that the students feared being Sorted into. Many of them cast long glances across to the Slytherin table. Neville noted how few students sat there awaiting their new additions. Most of the Slytherins also seemed to be no older than perhaps fourth year. Neville remembered the way the entire House had streamed out of the school when the fighting found its battlefield at Hogwarts. Clearly many of them had simply never returned.

Professor Flitwick, who had become the new Deputy Headmaster upon McGonagall's promotion, cleared his throat, signalling for silence. When that didn't work, he explicitly called out for the students to quieten down.

At first Neville thought that the students must not have heard Flitwick's quiet squeaks over the sounds of their own voices. However, even when McGonagall stood and called for order in a much louder and clearer voice, the chatter dropped in volume but did not quite cease entirely.

They were ignoring the teachers, Neville realised. They were ignoring McGonagall, who any sane student knew was not to be trifled with.

The bottom fell out of Neville's stomach when he realised how unprepared for this he was. He had no chance of keeping the students in check if even his former Head of House was not wholly successful.

The noise gradually fell away as the Sorting began, though several students continued murmuring as if to spite those who had asked for silence.

The first few students were Sorted into Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and received the sort of polite smattering of applause and occasional cheer that Neville remembered from the Sorting ceremonies when he was a student. Davenport, though, who was the first student to be Sorted into Gryffindor, was accompanied to the table by outrageous amounts of screaming and clapping – and even a wolf-whistle, Neville was shocked to notice – as if he had just done something worthy of a hero by merely being placed into a House by a talking hat.

Even though he personally had thought it quite the accomplishment, Neville didn't think he'd been quite so well received when he'd been sorted into Gryffindor a decade ago.

Nor did he remember the students hissing and booing when their fellows happened to be sorted into Slytherin. A girl – the third student to be Sorted into Slytherin that night – was even tripped as she walked past the Gryffindor table. A number of boys sitting at the end of the table laughed quietly, as if they didn't want to be caught at it but couldn't quite help themselves. One boy clapped his friend, who had clearly been the one to trip her, on the back in congratulations.

Neville found his mouth hanging open in pure surprise. It was one thing for McGonagall to take him aside at the staff meeting before the Sorting and imply that many of the students had taken the concept of misbehaving to almost epic proportions, but it was quite another thing to see them attacking each other with his own eyes. Neville had always thought that Gryffindors were meant to be brave and true, not petty bullies. They were acting rather more like the Slytherins they sought to condemn. Or rather, like Neville had expected the Slytherins would act, for the occupants of that particular table were remarkably quiet in response. They seemed unwilling to open their mouths even to welcome the new students to the table as they arrived, even the girl who had been tripped and was valiantly trying to hold back tears.

As she stumbled into her seat, McGonagall stood up on Neville's right.

"Congratulations, Mr Bouldercombe, you've just begun the school year by putting Gryffindor into negative points. I think fifty for bullying sounds fair."

Neville couldn't imagine not being scared out of his wits, such as they had been, if that tone had been directed at him when he was a student. He couldn't imagine not being cowed even now, as a teacher in his own right. However, Bouldercombe merely returned McGonagall's hard gaze steadily and sneered slightly in return.

He didn't care, Neville realised. And nor, by the looks of it, were the rest of the Gryffindor students willing to step up and condemn him (even for losing them points, if nothing else).

If Neville had lost fifty points when he was a student, for any reason at all, no one would have spoken to him for days. No, weeks.

Neville was startled when he heard his own name as McGonagall officially introduced him as the new Herbology professor once the Sorting had concluded. He stood up rather shakily and nodded his head towards the students in recognition. Several of them burst into even louder chatter and a few pointed at him in wonder, as if they had somehow failed to notice him sitting at the Head Table until precisely that moment. He was fairly certain he even heard one of the older students call out, "All right there, Neville?"

He thought that was somewhat heartening.

Still, he was happy enough to excuse himself from the High Table and retreat away from the Great Hall when the students were sent off to bed.

He thought he'd find solitude in the staff room; the Heads of House were all off talking to their students, and he'd expected the other teachers to be keen to get as much sleep as they could before school really began the following morning. However, he still found the room occupied upon his arrival.

Neville hovered outside for a moment, unsure whether he should interrupt the conversation in which McGonagall and Vector seemed to be engrossed. Then he heard his name and flattened himself against the wall close to the crack in the open doorway enough so that he could still hear them without risking being seen.

"– really such a good idea to be hiring on inexperienced teachers? Especially ones who are that young. The students will eat him for breakfast, surely?"

"He may not seem it, but Longbottom's made of sturdy material. He's been battered around just enough in his life that he can likely handle a bit more."

"Did you notice how shocked he was at the feast earlier?" Vector asked. "You did let him know what he was getting into, didn't you?"

"I … alluded to it. He would have refused had I openly said that the students are rebelling against us, even though I'm sure he can handle it. His self-confidence could still use some work, though it's much better than it was when he first arrived a Hogwarts as a student himself, of course."

"That wasn't so long ago, really. He was a student less than half a decade ago. In fact, the boy – the man, now, I suppose – began the students' revolt in the first place, even if the reason for it back then was a little different."

"Precisely. They respect him for it. He may be a teacher, but to them he's almost still one of them. They'll listen to him."

Neville blinked and retreated away from the door at which he'd been eavesdropping. He travelled silently back to his quarters on the fourth floor, his mind racing.

He wondered if this was how Harry had felt, with all hopes resting on his shoulders. What if Neville failed in controlling the students like McGonagall and the other staff clearly hoped he would? Would they regret asking him onto the staff? Would they realise that they'd made a mistake in asking him to teach when clearly he wasn't fit for the job?

Neville didn't fall asleep for hours after that. His fear of what would happen if he failed – when he failed, some dark voice that sounded suspiciously like Snape suggested at the back of his mind, though he tried very hard to brush it aside – formed a sort of waking nightmare that sleep would not easily vanquish.

* * *

I'm not afraid of them, Neville told himself steadily. They're only students. I was a student not all that long ago. And now I have power over them. I can take House points and assign detention if there're any problems. I'm not afraid of them.

It was like a chant repeating steadily in his mind as he strode out of the castle towards the greenhouses, where he would be expecting his first class (fifth year Gryffindor and Ravenclaw) in twenty minutes.

Neville saw Luna Lovegood pottering about across the grounds, presumably preparing for the first Care of Magical Creatures Class of the year. She'd replaced Hagrid the previous year when he'd left the school. Hagrid hadn't given a reason for his departure, but then no one had apparently felt the need to ask him about it. Neville couldn't say he really blamed the man. The school had changed with the war, and it was clearly not the same place Hagrid had once known and loved.

Neville would have gone over to talk to Luna – he liked her despite her weirdness, or maybe because of it – but he could see a pack of students approaching from the path leading down from the back of the castle. His students.

Good Merlin, Neville actually had students. Who would expect him to teach them.

Just remember, he thought, it's their O.W.L. year. They're most likely too worried about soaking up everything they can learn to give two brain cells worth of thought to who's doing the teaching. After all, half of them are Ravenclaws.

When the students were all gathered outside Greenhouse Three, Neville cleared his throat, attempting to sound authoritative, and gestured towards the greenhouse. The students fell more silent than he'd heard since he'd arrived, though two or three continued whispering and tossed furtive glances in Neville's direction as they filed past him.

"Welcome to O.W.L. level Herbology," Neville said as loudly and clearly as he could manage once he'd directed all the students inside the greenhouse. His voice echoed slightly off the glass walls. "I'm Professor Longbottom. Many of you may remember me from my own time at school."

"Yeah, we remember you, Neville," one of the Gryffindor boys in the back who Neville was fairly certain was named Peaks snorted. He coughed something that sounded quite a bit like, "Shirtlifter!"

Neville frowned and tried to ignore the chorus of uncertain laughs that echoed throughout some of the group.

"As you'll probably hear from all of your teachers this year, the fact that your O.W.L.s are just around the corner means that you'll be learning more difficult concepts, and that you'll have to work harder than ever to keep up with the work as well as revising your previous years work in preparation for the exams."

"What's so difficult about Herbology?" Peaks called out. This time he clearly meant Neville to respond to him. "It's just feeding plants and harvesting bits from them. It's hardly as difficult as Potions, say. I bet even people who fail miserably at Potions can pass Herbology with flying colours. Didn't you have trouble with Potions, Professor?"

He leered at Neville as this time the laughter was more pronounced, though some of the students merely looked at the ground and kept their mouths closed.

Neville realised at that moment that McGonagall had been wrong. Many of these students didn't care one whit that he'd led them – or their older counterparts, at least – into the jaws of battle against the Death Eaters masquerading as teachers. They didn't care that he'd stood up to even Snape in the end, when it had counted. All they, even his fellow Gryffindors, saw was the boy he had once been, who had let himself be bullied and who had always forgotten things and whose worst fear in the world had been Professor Snape.

He tried to tell them that he'd passed Potions well enough. He also stressed that people tended to specialise in a field and the fact that they weren't good in one didn't have any bearing on their performance in another. However, it didn't take a genius to realise that they weren't really listening, or at least not all of them were.

"And what's so important about exams anyway?" a girl standing near Peaks whose name Neville didn't know chipped in. "The way I hear it, people like Harry Potter who got average O.W.L.s and didn't even sit the N.E.W.T.s are practically running the Ministry of Magic now, while some people who managed Outstandings in their field can't even get a single Ministry committee to pay attention to them. Isn't that true, Professor?"

He should have been surprised that rumours of his career thus far had apparently managed to circulate the school in the few hours since the students' arrival. He found, though, that he really wasn't.

"Hell," Neville muttered under his breath as the girl who'd questioned him smiled angelically and, of all things, battered her eyelashes innocently.

If the rest of his students were like this class, he thought it might be a good idea to start banging his head against the greenhouse wall until he passed out and be done with it.

* * *

His day didn't get any better after that. In fact, if anything, it seemed to slide further downhill which each passing hour.

Though some of his students seemed willing enough to listen to him – to even learn a thing or two from what he was saying, by the look of it – reports of his first class standing up to him travelled fast. By that afternoon whispers about 'Nervous Neville' seemed to follow him around. Even his last class of the day, which was comprised of wide-eyed first years, looked a lot less impressed with him and his subject than they perhaps should have been, all things considered.

He left the Great Hall having done little more than pick at his plate, more interested in finding someplace private than in continuing to stare at food that he had no intention of eating.

He had grown so accustomed to being alone during his research that being surrounded by so many chattering students was really getting on his nerves.

Neville's first thought was to go to the Room of Requirement, which had been his refuge at Hogwarts. However, the room's existence was hardly a secret anymore. In fact, he'd heard one of his seventh year students muttering to her friend during class that so many students had been found utilising the room for … well, for purposes that the teachers didn't particularly approve of, that McGonagall had placed wards around the entrance and enlisted Filch to keep a particularly close eye on that corridor.

Neville felt sure he could bypass Filch. He could probably even convince the wards to let him through as well. However, the thought that some inventive students could do the same and stumble upon him there – or that he might stumble upon them there, which could be so much worse – made the idea seem less than appetising.

Neville didn't so much as consider going to the staff room. The idea of being asked about his day while the teacher questioning him looked at him with knowing eyes would have been enough to put him off his dinner even if he had felt like eating in the first place.

So Neville took to spending his time in his tightly locked quarters not just that evening, but every subsequent evening that week, emerging just long enough so that he could honestly say he'd been in his office during office hours. He would refrain, if asked, from mentioning that he wasn't there for the entire duration of those office hours. It wasn't as if any of the students actually came to see him in his office, anyway.

He'd been surprised, though, to see a seventh-year whose name he hadn't learned (it was still the first week, he assured himself, surely not even a teacher with a good memory could have learned all their names in that time) approaching him after the double Herbology N.E.W.T. class. She was pulled bodily away by Dennis Creevey.

"I just want to ask a question!" the girl protested.

"He probably doesn't know the answer anyway, the fat lump," Creevey had replied, not troubling to keep his voice down.

Neville had been left standing at the front of the greenhouse with his mouth gaping open, watching the girl be reluctantly dragged away.

"I'm not fat," he muttered mutinously. Maybe once he might have been a bit chubby, but he wasn't that little boy anymore, and he really wished the students would see that. But then he realised how childish he had sounded and was glad he hadn't said it loud enough for Creevey to actually hear him.

It was one of the very few times when Neville didn't wish he could have brought himself to say what he was thinking.

He didn't think he'd ever done anything that would warrant such cold behaviour from Creevey. The boy had seemed such a quiet kid when Neville had been in school with him. Neville would never have guessed he had a mean-spirited bone in his body. He'd even been a member of the DA, despite how young he had been at the time.

With even students like Creevey treating him with something less than respect, Neville would have been only too happy to continue cutting his available consultation times well and truly short.

But then he realised that perhaps that seventh-year girl hadn't been the only student unable to see him after class because of the other students' opinions of him. Perhaps there were others who were unwilling to even try to ask questions where those students like Peaks, Creevey and Bouldercombe could see, for fear of themselves becoming targets of bullying. What if they'd tried to see him once he'd already left his office early for the night?

Even if only one or two students cared enough about Herbology to want to see their Professor outside class, Neville owed it to them to be there for them. After all, where there were Ravenclaws, there were students who cared more about study than what sort of reputation their teacher had.

Somehow, though, the students who were almost violently against other students seeking him out caught on to the fact that he was no longer hiding away in his quarters. They not only breached the wards that protected his office when he wasn't using it, but also launched several Dungbombs into it so that that day after class he couldn't get two steps inside the door without choking. The air-freshening charm he cast only went so far, but Neville forced himself to remain in his office with a Bubble-Head Charm on for the usual amount of time, even though the repulsive smell meant that there was even less chance than usual of a student bothering to come see him.

That wasn't the point. He knew it would only be worse if he didn't stay, if he let them win.

The following day, Neville found that there was yet another surprise awaiting him in his office. Written across his back wall in red were the words 'Heroes don't let people die. You're no hero.'

Apparently McGonagall had been wrong when she'd claimed that the students had stopped spelling graffiti on the walls.

The words had left a sick feeling in his stomach. He hadn't let anyone die during the war where he could have prevented it. He hadn't even directly seen anyone's death. Aside from, of course, Sirius Black, whose death had been the beginning of the war.

He couldn't prove for sure who his accuser had been, but Dennis Creevey wore a strange sort of defiant grin in his N.E.W.T. Herbology class the next day.

It was then that Neville realised he might have an idea what Creevey's problem was. Though he did wonder whether it was teachers in general or Neville specifically that Creevey blamed for not being able to save his brother from dying.

Neville felt about as welcome by then as Umbridge had been at the school, especially since it was his fellow Gryffindors who were the worst of all. He almost thought of having a word with their recently-instated Head of House, Professor Babbling, but that would require admitting that he wasn't coping as well as the rest of the Professors had hoped he would. Besides, she scarcely had any more control over the rowdier students than Neville did, so what help was she likely to be?

Besides, it wasn't as if all the students were actively misbehaving. Clearly a lot of them were uncomfortable about the whole thing, and others were just going along with it to avoid making trouble for themselves. If Neville could get through to the real trouble-makers – and there were really only twenty or so of them in the whole school, he'd figured out – then things would settle themselves.

So, he decided, it was really better to keep his problems to himself for now. He could handle it.

* * *

When one of the Ravenclaws handed in an assignment that was filled with truly disgusting and obscene slurs on Neville's character, Neville decided that even though he probably could handle it himself, maybe he should at least let McGonagall know. After all, remembering as well as he did how strict McGonagall had always been, Neville imagined she wouldn't be impressed with him if she found out that he was completely failing to keep order in his classroom.

She wasn't in her office when he arrived, but Neville knew for a fact she had no meetings or anything scheduled at that time, so she wouldn't be far away. For once he remembered the password that he was given, the one for the Headmistress's office, and he went upstairs to wait.

No sooner had Neville set down his briefcase full of student papers, with the offending piece of rubbish sitting at the top of the pile, than he heard a voice that clearly did not belong to McGonagall coming from seemingly nowhere.

"Adding breaking and entering to your growing list of crimes are you, Longbottom?"

Neville knew that voice. Neville could never hope to forget that voice.

"P-Professor?"

Neville turned around to find that a portrait of Professor Snape was glaring down at him from the wall amongst the other Heads of Hogwarts. It hadn't occurred to Neville that he would be there. He backed away slightly without meaning to.

"That’s right, get out. You don't belong here. You're useless, Longbottom, just like you've always been. Get out before you break something more valuable than you are. Get out, get out."

Neville heard Dumbledore's portrait admonishing, "Now, Severus …" but he was already almost out the door, fleeing from the sound of Snape's angry voice. He heard the sound of Snape's laughter perhaps for the first time ever following him out and just more justified than ever in being petrified by the man.

It was one thing to sneak around behind Snape's back in his seventh year, but Neville had never really overcome his terror whenever Snape focused his ire on him. His first instinct was always to run and hide, and he couldn't always stop his feet from taking him away to do just that.

He remembered later that he'd let Snape drive him away before he could see McGonagall. He also remembered that he'd left his briefcase, full of student assignments, lying on McGonagall's desk.

* * *

The seventh-year students whose essays he'd left on the deeply scarred old wooden desk in McGonagall's office were predictably annoyed not to receive their assignments back, marked, during their next class.

Neville heard more than one of them muttering about his bumbling incompetence, or other words to that effect. Bouldercombe glared at him outright and raised his voice so that he could be certain Neville could hear.

Bouldercombe's paper was likely as bad as paper he'd been intending to hand over to the Headmistress. He could imagine it would be an essay on the evils and cowardice of a certain House in Hogwarts, and the respective guilt of certain teachers who tried to treat the students in question as if they were equals. Neville was just as happy not to mark that sort of drivel, really.

Neville took points when they mocked him. They took no notice. Everything was as per usual.

The next time Neville had a lesson with that same class several days later, he saw actual disappointment in one or two sets of eyes when they still didn't receive their papers back. Neville quickly realised that, even apart from the fact that they were unlikely to complete the next assignment he would give them unless they knew he'd bothered to mark their last one, it wasn't right to just give their work up as a lost cause. He remembered staying up into all hours of the night trying to complete N.E.W.T. level assignments (in the first half of his seventh year when he'd actually attended classes, at least). He knew that at least a couple of the students must have put in some real effort. Not all of the students were being forced to attend school by their parents, after all.

He was there to teach, and as long as there were even just a couple of students who were there to learn, he owed it to those students to read their essays and give feedback.

That, unfortunately, meant facing his fears.

Neville journeyed up to McGonagall's office only to find that she must have been out and about again. He ascended the stairs as slowly as he could justify to himself, though he knew he was only drawing out the inevitable.

He had told himself that he wasn't coming back for the papers because the students didn't deserve to have them marked anyway, but the real reason he'd stayed away was even simpler than that.

He was afraid. Of a portrait. He felt as young and incompetent at that thought as he ever had as a, as Snape himself would put it, 'bumbling, useless lump' of a first year.

He had to do this, though, and not merely to retrieve the papers in question. There was no way his students would ever respect him if he couldn't stand up to them, and he couldn't stand up to them if he couldn't stand up for himself in general. And what better way to conquer his fears?

The thought of it didn't make him any less afraid.

It was hard to believe, looking at how afraid he was then, that Neville had forced himself to stand up to real live (looming) version of Snape only a few years earlier. He'd even gone so far as to break into Snape's office and attempt to steal from him, then.

It was strange, but sometimes Neville missed the war. He missed the man he'd become then. Not for the first time, Neville wondered whether he'd been an entirely different person during the war. He wished that person had stuck around. He wouldn't be scared of going near Snape. Or he probably wouldn't have run away like a first year, anyway.

Neville steeled himself and remembered that he had clearly been brave enough to force himself to attend Potions class for five straight years of terror. The brave man he'd been during the war was buried somewhere inside him, surely. That being the case, he could certainly return to the Headmistress's office alone, just once, and just for a few moments.

"I wondered if you'd eventually come back, Longbottom. I expected you might be too afraid."

Neville tried to ignore him as he entered the room, purposely avoiding looking anywhere but towards the floor. When he looked up enough to spy the desk, however, he realised that his briefcase had been moved. Clearly McGonagall had needed to use her own desk, and she'd probably moved it to search it for dark spells even despite that; she wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave an unidentified object just lying around. Neville felt like an idiot for not expecting it.

"I must admit to being stunned that the Headmistress hired you on. Do you think it was a moment of insanity, or has she actually gone so senile as to believe that you would make a good teacher?"

Neville tried very hard to ignore him as he ducked around the office searching for a glimpse of the familiar sight of battered black leather.

"Of course, I'm apparently not the only person who believes in your incompetence. A number of parents have come through this very office to complain, either because their children think you're an idiot or because they themselves remember how much of an imbecile you are. Even the Ministry sent someone to talk to McGonagall. There must be something terribly wrong when Percy Weasley, of all people, thinks that you're an overbearing prat."

Neville's hands fumbled for just a moment, but it was clearly enough to let Snape know that he was surprised. He gave up the pretence and asked, "Percy? Why was he here?"

"He's representing the Ministry on the Board of Governors now. Don't start thinking you have a friend there, though. He doesn't seem to like you very much. Oh yes, even your fellow Gryffindors think you're incompetent. Especially the students. They say such interesting things about you, 'Nervous Neville'. I must admit that I never heard that particular endearment while you were a student. Did your 'friends' reserve it for taunting you away from prying eyes?"

Neville's eyebrows scrunched closer together, but still he said nothing in response.

"You must give my compliments to the student who began his petition to the Headmistress for your removal by describing every detail of what his father has ever said about your 'crackpot schemes'. Something-or-other Rodricks, I recall. A Ravenclaw, isn't he?" He was, Neville thought. In fact, he was the Ravenclaw whose paper had pushed Neville to come up to that office in the first place. "His father's part of the Ministry, as I recall," Snape continued. "What's wrong, Longbottom, weren't you allowed to join Potter and the others in 'shaping a better future' for the magical world?"

"Shut up," Neville muttered.

"What was that? I didn't quite hear you."

Neville slammed his hand against the small cupboard he'd been searching for his case. His hand throbbed in time with the blood vessels in his temples. He turned around to look directly at the portrait of Snape for the first time since his arrival in the office.

"I said, 'shut up'," Neville replied gamely. "You've no right to throw their comments back in my face. It's your fault they're even acting like this! They feel like they can't trust the teachers anymore; and it's all the teachers, not just me."

If Snape could have stalked across the room to loom over Neville, he probably would have then. Even though he couldn't, Neville still felt like Snape was towering over him from clear across the room. "Let's not forget that it was you who taught them to fight against their teachers in the first place. I'm sure you haven't forgotten a certain incident with a sword in your final year? You weren't the only student to break into my office that year. The rest of them took their cue from you, and they didn't just attempt to steal things. I could barely see the walls for all the graffiti, though they left the old Heads' portraits alone, at least. A few second-hand insults, I think, don't even compare to that. It's time you face up to the truth about yourself anyway."

Snape looked more menacing than ever in that moment.

Neville wanted to crawl into a hole. Snape had always scared him out of his wits, and that hadn't really changed to any huge extent. However, Neville had learned during the war that things like fear could be used in other ways. Fear caused adrenaline, which could be used for fight rather than flight. Fear, in essence, could be converted into bravery. Fear could give a person the energy they needed to get through a battle alive. Fear was just intense emotion. It didn't need to overcome him. He could use it.

Easier said than done, of course, but Neville had to try.

"You can't hurt me," Neville said, hoping that Snape couldn't detect the slight shaking in his body and his voice. Somehow he thought that might be too much to ask.

"Can't I?" Snape asked, baring teeth that, probably for the first time since they first came through his gums as a child, were pearly white (though still somewhat crooked). "Who do you think the Headmistress consults when making a decision? I could have you fired within hours."

Neville gritted his teeth.

"You're just paint and canvas and an animation spell," he said. "You can't hurt anyone. I could silence you if I wanted. You can't do anything to me now," Neville said. And then he realised what he was saying, realised that it wasn't just words, but rather truth. His breathing raced in a combination of excitement over having just stood up to Snape and fear that somehow, despite his own words, there would be some reprisal for his actions.

"Careful, now, Longbottom," Snape warned.

Neville glared at him. "No, I don't have to be careful. I'm the one with the power, here. And I'll prove it to you. I went to the library earlier –"

"A novel experience for you, I'm sure."

"– and I looked up a spell to remove a portrait by wiping the paint clear off the canvas. You should be careful, or I just might use it."

"You couldn't cast a charm if your life depended on it, Longbottom, especially one like that. Do you realise how many preservation spells are on this portrait?"

"Actually, I could do it. I know I could, because I've cast spells more powerful than it would take to get rid of you. Maybe I would have believed you while I was still a student, but I've helped win a war since then. I'm a Gryffindor more than just in name."

Neville turned around and went back to searching for the briefcase.

"Well done, Neville," Dumbledore's portrait said.

"It's about time he grew a backbone," Snape's portrait muttered grudgingly in response.

Neville smiled, though he was glad that his back was to Snape's portrait so that he didn't see the pleased tilt of Neville's lips.

* * *

Continue to Part 3