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Still, where did the lighter fluid come from? (emiime) wrote in percy_ficathon, @ 2008-07-16 11:04:00

A gift for catgoddess! (Part 3 of 4)
PART THREE

"Hello, Luna," Neville said as Luna sat down next to him at lunch for the first time since he'd arrived at Hogwarts. He smiled at her. "How are you?"

"A bit under the weather, actually," she said. "I think my room is infested with Grabplankers. Their skin sheddings make me sneeze, but I can't bring myself to turn them out. They've nowhere else to live, you know. I'm thinking of bringing them out temporarily to show my class, but they're very good hiders, so I haven't caught one yet."

His smile broadened as he spoke. The class would be no less strange and unpredictable than when Hagrid had taught it, but Neville suspected it might not be quite as dangerous. Although … He pictured a whole class of students trekking through the Forbidden Forest hunting for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and snickered to himself.

"Speaking of class topics, was it difficult for you to make up class plans? I'm finding it hard, and Professor Sprout was brilliant about leaving notes for me. It all must have been fairly up in the air last year, what with Hagrid leaving so quickly."

Luna smiled. "I didn't really make plans; I think the best lessons are learned at the spur of the moment."

Neville doubted that idea could really be applied to teaching at a place like Hogwarts, but it would be truly futile to point that out to Luna.

"It was sad about Professor Hagrid, though," she continued airily. "Professor McGonagall said that he ran off in quite a hurry. I'd only just returned from vacation with my father when I received the owl. I'd been helping him out with the paper since I left school last year, you know, but then he sold it off so he could better spend his time on his expeditions."

"Your father sold the Quibbler?" Neville asked, stunned.

"Yes, of course. Haven't you noticed how terribly written it's been lately?"

Neville muttered in embarrassment about being out of the country, not wanting to let on that he wouldn't have read the Quibbler even if he'd been in Britain all along. It was the only paper that could be counted on to write a completely truthful article, but the 'truth' in question was frequently ridiculous and insane.

"But he refuses to buy the paper back, even though it's being wrecked now. He's not interested in writing about the goings-on in the Ministry right now, you see, and that's all anyone wants to read about, so the paper just wasn't selling. It's very strange, don't you think? Reports about Yerblasters are much more interesting than any politics."

"Interesting. That's one word for it," Neville muttered good-naturedly under his breath.

Luna gave him her trademark sort of vague smile. "I suspect Professor Hagrid may have left because he doesn't like politics either. He missed Headmaster Dumbledore, and he didn't like that the Ministry were always getting involved once Dumbledore was gone. It's not the same around here without him, is it? Less cheerful. Less exciting."

Neville wondered whether Luna had somehow managed to become sane in the two years since he'd seen her, because that actually made a lot of sense. Of course Hagrid would feel particularly affected by having to stand by while Hogwarts' good reputation was slowly sullied by disparaging students. It must have been a painful reminder each and every day that Dumbledore and his influence were gone, and that things could never be quite the same, as Luna said.

"For once, Luna," Neville said uncertainly, "what you're saying makes absolute sense to me. I think I'm a bit scared, really."

Luna shrugged. "Well, it's only a small part of the reason, of course. I hear that he actually found a Snorkack horn deep in the Forbidden Forest and is off to make his fortune auctioning it off. He'll be able to live on the income from that for years, I imagine."

Neville rolled his eyes good-naturedly. That was the Luna he'd come to know and, yes, even to love.

* * *

Though she regularly talked to Neville at meals from then on, Luna Lovegood generally kept to herself just as much as a Professor as she had when she was an outcast student. It took Neville a while – longer than he would like to admit, truth be told – to realise that the reason for her seclusion was probably that, like Neville, most of the students remembered Luna from her own school days. She had, after all, only been away from school for barely half a year before Hagrid had departed abruptly and needed to be replaced.

Neville hadn't noticed that Luna was being treated any differently than the other teachers, who all received some amount of crap from the students, until he witnessed the students actively teasing her. Luna, off in her own world as usual, hadn't even seemed to notice that they were talking to her, even though they were clearly chanting, "Loony Lovegood," as they followed her out onto the grounds. Since Luna didn't seem bothered by it, Neville let that occasion slide, but he vowed to keep a closer eye on her from then on.

The students seemed to take her ability to ignore them as a challenge, though. Unlike with the rest of the teachers, Neville included, they were no more subtle in mocking her than they were in pushing the younger and more defenceless Slytherins into walls in the hallways (which, the two times Neville had caught them doing it, had cost them a goodly number of House points, not that they'd taken much notice). There were also a lot more students interested in having a go at Luna than there were students who misbehaved in Neville's classes.

By all accounts, it seemed that Luna was widely considered fair game.

Neville begged to disagree.

Neville even came across a group of them surrounding her in the hallway and openly mocking her appearance, her intelligence and her father, of all things, all in one breath. Luckily for them, they had dispersed before he reached them.

Neville would have liked to have cursed the lot of them as they walked away. Forget the rules about teachers using corporal punishment; that was just what those brats needed right at that moment.

Neville took a moment to realise that he sounded like Snape inside his own head. He shuddered just a little.

But it was one thing when one or two of them insulted Neville. It was quite another to pick on Luna, who was … well, who was Luna.

Their taunts didn't seem to perturb Luna any more than they had done while she was a student herself, though. She shrugged it off easily and barely acknowledged that anything was out of the ordinary. For her, Neville supposed, it was all perfectly normal.

He remembered, then, that this bullying instinct that some of the students seemed to be acting upon was hardly new to Hogwarts. Luna had been on the tail end of it for years. It was just that now the targets of the bullying were the entirety of the staff and a whole House rather than one or two oddball children that no one paid much mind except to remark cruelly upon their strangeness.

Whether it had been around for years or not, though, it just wasn't right. And though Neville wasn't always quick to stand up for himself or even what he believed in, he understood that when things were inherently wrong, something had to be done.

Neville felt thoroughly disgusted with himself for not standing up for Luna before she'd ever had time to grow accustomed to being the butt of an eternal joke. It hardly mattered that he hadn't known her until she'd already lived through three years of it.

Well, there was no time like the present.

Neville found that the students weren't quite so careful about sticking just to words with Luna. They'd probably figured that she wouldn't tell, since she never had before.

They didn't count on Neville seeing one of the seventh-year Ravenclaw boys tripping her in the hallways.

There it was. His cue could not have been any more obvious if he had seen it in flashing lights, because he practically saw red then. Enough was enough.

No more.

"Two hundred points from Ravenclaw for attacking a teacher!" Neville shouted from down the hall.

Every person in the hallway stopped and turned to look at him as he bustled down the hallway to Luna's side. She dusted herself off as if she'd just taken a fall rather than been all but pushed on the way down.

"And if I ever see you so much as look at a Professor the wrong way again, Rodricks, you won't see the outside of detention until you leave Hogwarts for good."

"You –"

"And if you don't like it, I suggest you explain your case to the Headmistress and see if she doesn't decide to expel you straight away instead. Perhaps you'd rather that, since you clearly don't really want to be at Hogwarts anyway."

"The Headmistress won't –"

The height Neville had gained since leaving school made looming over Rodricks quite effective, Neville decided. It made for a nice bluff. Rodricks clearly agreed, as he was quick to snap his mouth shut.

"The Headmistress may be cutting the students some slack after the war, but be it on your own head if you underestimate her, or me. This ends now. You will start behaving like a human being, like someone who deserves to be at Hogwarts, or you will be removed."

Rodricks muttered something and stormed away from Neville.

"That's another twenty from Ravenclaw for not showing the proper respect," Neville called after him, but he let him go otherwise unimpeded. He expended his energy instead on making sure Luna made it to her class without the students trying to retaliate against her for Neville's actions. He subtly took her by the elbow and led her outside.

She merely started chattering away about her third year class as if nothing interesting had taken place. Neville didn't think he'd ever met anyone quite like Luna Lovegood before. He imagined what it must be like to live in a completely different world to everyone else.

It must be brilliant, Neville decided, because she seemed to be the only teacher who was completely unaffected by the ongoing power struggle within the school even though the students treated her by far the worst of anyone but the Slytherins.

Strangely, Neville also felt somewhat less affected whenever she was around. They were very alike, in some very key ways. It was nice to have someone with whom he could so easily coexist – someone his own age, even – at the school.

Things were looking up, he decided.

"So tell me more about the Scrumdingers," Neville requested, and he marvelled at how Luna's wide eyes seemed even more alight at his interest.

* * *

"Professor Longbottom. Can I speak with you in my office?"

Neville frowned and changed trajectory, abandoning the plans he'd been making regarding a nice hot cup of tea and a long bath to wash away the problems of the day. Clearly his day wasn't quite over yet after all. He hoped that this 'meeting with McGonagall wouldn't make it any worse.

He followed her to her office and up the stairs, then sat when she indicated to a seat.

"I have heard that you had an encounter with a group of students who were apparently bullying Professor Lovegood earlier today."

"Yes. Rodricks deserves to be expelled, really, but I'm hoping that just the threat of it will have forced him to think before he acts next time."

McGonagall, in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, pinched the bridge of her nose just above her spectacles as if to stave off a headache.

"I'm not certain anymore that threats are enough," she admitted. "I don't think I've done the students any favours by not expelling some of them before now."

Neville had, in fact, wondered how students such as Rodricks could possibly have survived the last few years since the war without having felt McGonagall's teacherly wrath.

"We – or rather I, since the other teachers have merely gone along with my wishes – thought it best for the children to try to keep them in school as long as possible. Hogwarts was always a safe haven while Professor Dumbledore was here, and I've tried to make it so again, but I've found that the students aren't particularly appreciate of the effort. However, whether they're grateful or not, I don't want to cast them away from the school with things as they are now. The students who are acting out, as you may have noticed, are usually those who have lost their family during the war or who lost their family to the Ministry's crime purges afterwards. They're hurt and resentful, and if I expel them and send them out in the world while they're still that way they're just as likely as not to be arrested and sentenced to Azkaban. More so, in fact, since they would also be bitter about their expulsion on top of everything else."

Neville nodded. "The Ministry's new policy is making everything worse."

"They don't seem to see it. They don't see how they're separating families and ruining lives over nothing. Two wizards draw their wands on each other in a moment of weakness and they're both sentenced to Azkaban despite the fact that neither of them ever got a chance to cast a spell, and may not have done. Azkaban is meant to be for real criminals. If those who have been sent there for petty reasons ever get out, they'll likely have been made into criminals of the highest order."

"I can't imagine what it would be like if the Dementors were still under Ministry control," Neville shuddered.

"I just wanted to keep the students in Hogwarts until things went back to normal in the Ministry. I didn't think it would last," McGonagall remarked. "I expected that those in the Ministry who have common sense would point out how terrible the fallout of the zero tolerance policy has already been. But everyone who isn't part of the Minister's regime is too scared to speak up, and with good reason."

Neville couldn't agree more. He was one of those people who was running scared. He'd been to Azkaban; he didn't want to go back. And yet …

And yet if enough of them could overcome their fear, they might have a chance.

"The longer we wait to do something about it, the more people who are willing to stand up to the Ministry will have been picked off, labelled as rebels and sent to Azkaban," Neville said.

McGonagall nodded. "I don't know what to do," she admitted. "If we don't start expelling students things at Hogwarts will spiral out of control. But I can't rationalise sending any of them out into the world while the world is already so far out of control already."

The idea that even someone as strong as McGonagall could be at a loss was one of the most frightening things Neville had ever considered.

"We'll just have to wait a little longer," Neville said quietly. "Doors are closing all over the place, there's got to be a window opening somewhere."

"That's either very naïve or very insightful."

From the tone in her voice, McGonagall clearly believed it was the latter. Her 'I hope it's not just wistful thinking' went unsaid. Neville was glad for once to be left to his delusions.

* * *

Neville didn't know why anyone would ever want to be famous. Fame was a burden far more often than a blessing, he'd found. Like now, when not only the students but also the Daily Prophet seemed to have forgotten earlier rumours about his homosexuality in order to spread new rumours about his so-called 'whirl-wind romance' with Luna Lovegood. Even Peaks, who had called him a shirtlifter to his face within the first few minutes of his first class, couldn't seem to help himself when it came to taunting Neville about his knight-in-shining-armour complex and his helpless girlfriend.

Neville was slightly perturbed that standing up for someone had come to be equated with wanting to have sex with them. He certainly didn’t have any such interest in Luna, whatever the rest of the world was saying.

He did wish, though, that people would leave Luna alone. Neville might not really care so much, but he wasn't going to let people keep bullying her. He kept an even closer eye than even on her from then on.

That was, in fact, the only reason why he was aware of it when, of all people, Percy Weasley showed up and started following Luna around as she tended to the magical creatures she was using for her next lesson.

"The students are complaining, Professor Lovegood, and the Ministry is very concerned. Hogwarts must maintain a certain standard of education in all its classes or the students will go looking for knowledge elsewhere."

"Is that why the Ministry is locking away every person who has an original thought?" Neville called out as he approached the pair hastily. "Are they afraid that if we don't agree with them that we'll all run off and become the next generation of Voldemorts."

Percy shuddered at the name. "Yes, Mr Longbottom, they are worried. Considering you were in the thick of the war, I would think that you would be worried, too. I don't understand why you insist on trying to divert the Ministry's attention to other less pressing concerns. Things like the benefit of the doubt are simply impossible in times like these. We must be vigilant."

"You know, Percy, sometimes you sound like a walking Ministry advertisement," Neville laughed.

Percy opened his mouth to reply – angrily, by the look of it – but he was interrupted before a single harsh noise could make it out.

"The Ministry likes watching everyone," Luna said. "The Ministry can't stand not being in control of everyone and everything, so it watches every move of every person it possibly can. The Ministry's using the Daily Prophet as a surveillance tool. There are bugs everywhere."

Neville would ordinarily have dismissed Luna's words as rambling. As much as he liked her, he had long ago accepted that not all of what she said was necessarily sane or logical. However, every now and then she said something quite poignant. Thinking back on the photo taken of him hitting Percy, and what McGonagall had said about the illegal planting of cameras, Neville suspected that this might just be one of those moments.

Percy sighed in exasperation. "Professor Lovegood, really, I think we've all had more than enough of your conspiracy theories. Now, if we could get back to the topic at hand, I'd like to talk to you about your complete lack of planning and co-ordination with other subjects offered in the Hogwarts curriculum."

He sounded like he believed what he was saying, at least. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Percy Weasley had blindly believed in the Ministry of Magic.

Luna frowned. "I thought you were here to talk to me about using 'dangerous' creatures. Aren't you part of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I didn't think they were particularly worried about the education side of things."

Neville laughed. "Are you serious? You're not still the Ministry representative on the Board of Governors, then? Honestly, Percy, you'd think that none of the Departments want you or something, the rate you're moving about."

The look that shot across Percy's face in that first moment suggested that Neville may have struck a chord, and he was immediately sorry for it. He hadn't meant anything by it.

It was just a joke, he wanted to say, but the words stuck in his throat.

So much for feeling better about himself if he spoke up more.

Neville tried to apologise, but Percy merely turned back to Luna and said, "I'll need to talk to you in some degree of privacy, and I can see that won't happen here at Hogwarts. Professor Lovegood, you'll be expected to contact me by owl to make an appointment within the week. And I'll be including this unwillingness to assist in the process in the report. Mr Longbottom, you two may be the happy couple of the week, but you may not come with her. Private interview means private."

When Percy walked away, it was with the air of a man just barely clinging to his dignity (or, more correctly, to his punctured but still over-sized ego).

Neville wondered why Percy seemed so sure that Neville was sleeping with anything that walked. It wasn't as if Neville was exactly the poster-boy – poster-man? – for popularity. Fame did always lead to a fabulous love life, after all.

"We're not a couple," Neville called after Percy, just to set the record straight.

Percy paused for a moment in his tracks as if considering Neville's words, but then he continued walking on without looking back.

That was weird.

Later, Neville realised that he hadn't even corrected Neville when he'd called him 'Percy'.

* * *

Neville had to admit that he only didn't really care what the students were saying about his love life until he arrived at his office to find that graffiti was once more coating the walls, this time making reference, among other things, to Luna in a way that really raised Neville's hackles.

From then on, he cared. He wasn't going to stand for it.

"Creevey," Neville called out at the end of class two days later. "Stay behind a moment."

For a moment Neville thought Dennis Creevey would just keep walking in spite of him, but he did eventually roll his eyes and break away from the queue of his fellow students walking out into the open air of the Hogwarts grounds.

"I went to my office between classes yesterday, Mr Creevey, and was quite shocked when I walked inside. Do you know what surprise I found?"

Creevey shook his head sullenly.

"I found graffiti on my wall. Again. This time it was drawing of a very explicit nature and some very serious accusations about my … how did it put it? Oh, yes, 'defiling Junior Death Eaters'. Since I have certainly never behaved inappropriately towards any Death Eaters, and there is certainly no such thing as a 'Junior' Death Eater, particularly in this school, I was quite offended."

"So?" Creevey muttered. He kicked resentfully at the wall of the greenhouse. Neville refused to comment, though he would dearly have liked to.

"So, it's a very serious thing to accuse a professor of such behaviour. The punishment where a student does so with no proof of the claim and even with no belief in its truth should be serious, too. So I'd like to warn you now that if any more graffiti shows up in my office, particularly if the handwriting obviously matches the terrible handwriting I keep coming across in your essays, I might have to take action."

Creevey snorted dismissively and muttered something about points and shoving that Neville didn't quite catch, though he got the drift of it easily enough.

"No, Mr Creevey, I'm finished with House points. Gryffindor hasn't a hope of getting their points into positive numbers, after all, so losing points isn't really a threat, is it?

"However, I might consider writing to parents instead. I think you have forgotten that you are one of the lucky ones at this school. You may have lost your brother in the war, which is a terrible thing, but your parents are still both alive and outside Azkaban's overcrowded walls. And yet, unlike some of your fellow students who aren't so lucky but have overcome their hardships, you are here only because your parents wanted you to finish your education, I think. You don't care if you are expelled, do you?"

Dennis said nothing, but Neville could tell by the look on his face that he was right.

"Perhaps you should care, at least, that if you are expelled and go out into the world as angry and destructive as you are now, you will run into trouble. The Ministry will not be as lenient as I have been, or as the rest of your Professors have undoubtedly been. You will be thrown into Azkaban in a heartbeat. Wouldn't your parents be upset if they received word that yet another of their sons had been taken from them?"

Neville knew that it was cruel to use Colin Creevey's death against his brother in such a way. It made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was the sort of thing Snape might do, after all. But he knew that he couldn't apologise. That was the sort of mistake he would have made when he'd first arrived. It was the sort of thing that would only make the problem worse. What he was doing was necessary, no matter how bad he felt, because it was all there was left for him to do to possibly stop the future he'd predicted for Dennis.

"Do you understand me, Mr Creevey?" he asked.

Dennis nodded rapidly, his eyes wide and a sort of astonished denial painting his features. Clearly the reference to his brother and the threat of imprisonment had both hit their marks.

Dennis looked more like the young boy Neville remembered, just for an instant.

They're just children, Neville realised, all of them. Some of them might only have been a few years younger than him, but the majority of the students still at Hogwarts had all been too young to have been truly affected by the war; they hadn't been old enough to stay for the final battle staged at Hogwarts, and second-hand reports just didn't have the same impact. Neville had stayed. Neville had been forever changed by that battle from the moment it erupted. The students had just been changed in a slightly different way, and the change was often more delayed.

They were just children.

Neville bit his lip slightly, looking down on Creevey.

Someone needed to help them.

"Fine," he said, his voice slightly softened. "Just remember what I said. Dismissed."

As Creevey darted out in the direction the rest of his class had gone, Neville fervently hoped that what he knew he had to do now wouldn't be something he'd regret when all was said and done.

* * *

Professor McGonagall had once told Neville that the only thing standing in his way was his own lack of confidence. It was time that he really did something about that.

"I need to know how to be more like you were when you were a teacher," Neville announced as soon as he walked through the door of McGonagall's office. He'd only had to wait a few hours before she left; he'd wanted to have this conversation in relative privacy, even though he knew the other portraits would probably report it back to her. "Not the unfair, nasty part, so much. I don't want to scare them, if I can avoid it. That's not me. I just want to know … well, whatever it was that gave you respect. What made you tough on us? You were young when you started teaching as well, weren't you?"

"You need to know a lot of things, Longbottom," said Snape's portrait. "I think, however, that we've proven that you are incapable of learning them, especially from me."

"It's in your best interests to talk to me," Neville said.

"Oh? I fail to see how."

Despite his words, Neville thought he had Snape's interest.

"I've threatened a few of the students, which has been effective in stopping them from mocking me outright during class time to a point, but it's not enough. I don't want them to just clam up whenever they see me. The students are still hassling each other, and the Slytherins are being victimised more than most. Your Slytherins are the ones suffering, Professor."

"They are not my Slytherins any more, Longbottom. In case your intellect, or lack thereof, has not been up to the challenge of recognising it, I regret to inform you that I am dead. I am not their Head of House anymore. Besides, the Slytherins are capable of looking after themselves, Longbottom. They have always been mistreated, and always will be. They are used to it. They don't need you to be their knight in shining armour. You're more likely than harm them than help them, knowing your intellect as intimately as I unfortunately do."

Neville forced himself not to feel cowed at Snape's insult. Snape wouldn't help him unless he thought that Neville was worth helping, which meant he really had to believe that Neville had grown a backbone.

Fear into bravery, he reminded himself. Fight not flight. It sounded almost like a mantra in his head.

Neville drew a steadying breath and rolled his eyes at Snape. Snape looked more amused than anything, though his smirk slid off his face when Neville spoke again.

"A Slytherin girl – one of the younger years – was nearly sent to Azkaban last year," he said. "She was provoked into letting loose some accidental magic, as far as the teachers can tell. The other child, a Gryffindor, ended up in St Mungo's for a time, and the parents complained to the Ministry when Professor McGonagall didn't expel the girl. She was thirteen years old, and McGonagall had to make a deal for her so that she wouldn't be sent away. She's been mercilessly bullied since then, but McGonagall can't do anything about that either. Her hands are tied.

"Most of them are just as young and confused as they've ever been. Even the real troublemakers are just children in the end, I've realised."

"Brilliant deductive skills," Snape muttered sarcastically. "Right up to the Longbottom par, I think. Was it their lack of height that gave it away?"

Again Neville had to focus on making sure his voice didn't shake. It made it easier to ignore Snape's words.

"If I could make them actually respect me, and listen to me, I could get it through to them that it's got to stop before it gets out of hand. I could find a way other than expelling them and letting the Ministry send them all off to prison one by one to stop them."

Snape sneered, but Neville knew that he must be considering it, for he didn't respond immediately.

"The Ministry is just as bigoted as it ever was, though no one would be willing to admit it, of course," said Snape. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Neville.

Snape eventually nodded, seemingly to himself. Then he looked directly at Neville once more. "I make no promises. You will remember that many of your cohort merely left mocking me for what they thought was out of my hearing. That is not the kind of respect you'll need."

"That doesn't matter," Neville insisted. "I don't care whether they call me names and stuff." Snape's impressive nose scrunched up slightly in disdain at the use of the words 'and stuff', Neville noticed. "All I what is for them to take my word as law. You were able to do that, even towards the end when everyone thought … well, you know. That's what I need you to teach me."

If Neville didn't know better, he might have thought Snape actually looked slightly pleased at the off-hand comment on his ability to teach and keep order.

"All right. I will …" Snape grimaced, "help you become passible at asserting what little authority you have over your students. With the Headmistress's permission, you'll come here twice a week until I'm satisfied that either you are no longer as pathetic as you are now, or that you cannot be helped at all. Or until I become so sick of the sight of you that I can't stand to be in your presence. Perhaps both, considering what I have to work with."

"You'll … you'll actually help me?"

"If you can possibly be helped, which I very much doubt," Snape's portrait scoffed.

Neville nodded curtly. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

He turned on his heel, leaving Snape and the other portraits alone together once more.

* * *

Though Neville was starting to learn a little about how to deal with the students after a few sessions with Snape, and was certainly less afraid of standing up to them after having to deal with Snape sniping at him for hours on end, he was still glad when the focus of their attention was taken away from him and Luna a few weeks later by the most recent gossip.

Neville arrived at dinner to find the whole school buzzing. The kerfuffle was apparently, Neville gleaned after several minutes of excited chatter, about Madame Pince's sudden resignation. Much like Hagrid the year before, she'd packed up her things and left the grounds abruptly, rumour had it. No one even knew where she had gone. None of the students seemed to care much, either, which hardly surprised Neville.

The staff, on the other hand, were whispering among themselves at the Head Table about what could have happened to make her suddenly so unhappy at Hogwarts.

"So she just left because she didn't like it here anymore?" Neville asked, dropping his stack of papers on the table in front of him and tossing himself just as unceremoniously into his usual seat.

Sinistra's eyes took on the sort of wide, incredulous look Neville had noticed that she wore whenever there was gossip in the air (which was fairly frequent at Hogwarts).

"It's something of a scandal, really," she whispered. "Not even Christmas before a teacher has run off for the second year in a row. Some of the other staff members are saying the students must have cursed the teaching positions, and we didn't even notice. Perhaps they even did it before the summer; he's been especially lowly since last year sometime. It's a bit of a tragedy. The school's just recovered from the Defence curse, we hardly need another curse that could affect any teacher in any position. We'll never find new staff."

Sinistra liked her fantastical stories, Neville had been quick to realise, but even though they tended to be ninety-nine percent conjured from thin air, there was always a grain of fact hidden in there somewhere.

Neville didn't believe for a second that the students would have cursed the teachers. Generally, he had found that they were more like Snape than they probably realised (and Neville thought that he'd like to see their faces if he ever got the courage to tell them so). They liked to hurt with words, but they would rarely stoop to actual physical action, towards their teachers at least (though the Slytherin victims provided almost daily proof that the students didn't mind banging up their fellows a little). Though the Ministry of Magic refused to expel students under the current circumstances, if the students got so out of hand that they began actually attacking the teachers, the Ministry would have to step up to their responsibility, for once.

Every single student seemed to instinctively know that there was a line that they shouldn't cross unless they wanted to face more than docked points and detentions. Neville didn't think that they'd step over that line just to curse Hagrid, who was very unlikely to have done anything to provoke them.

The grain of truth that Neville decided to take from Sinistra's version of events, then, was that Pince had grown sick of the students running amok in her precious library. Neville wasn't surprised. She'd never seemed particularly happy in her job. Neville was glad that she wasn't, for example, suffering as Professor Sprout had been from the long-term effects of a curse. Since the secret of Neville's predecessor's mysterious disappearance came from McGonagall herself rather than someone less credible like Sinistra, he could at least take that as fact.

"It'll be terribly difficult to find a new librarian," Sinistra complained, "what with how the students have been using the library as some sort of duelling room. Half the shelves have had to be repaired since the school year began, and some more than once, I've heard! Something has to be done."

Neville sighed. For once, Sinistra wasn't really exaggerating.

* * *

Continue to Part 4