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lomonaaerenTitle: The Secrets of Longbottom Manor
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: None, gen
Content Notes: AU, familiars, angst, mentions of the canon fate of the Longbottoms
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Staying at Longbottom Manor for Christmas with his new guardian Augusta Longbottom, Harry can’t help observing some of the problems that Neville has—and trying to help.
Author’s Notes: This is part of my “Children of the Sun” series, and follows Silver Shadow Snake. This will be a short part that covers Christmas of Harry’s first year.
The Secrets of Longbottom Manor
Part One
“Are you ready, Mr. Potter?”
Harry looked up and nodded. Mrs. Longbottom held his shrunken trunk in one hand, and Neville’s in the other. Neville had tried to shrink his own and failed. Mrs. Longbottom had just sighed and muttered something about “of course” before she took over the chore herself.
Harry knew that the reason Neville failed was that he was still using his father’s wand. He had talked to Mrs. Longbottom once before about changing that, but she hadn’t listened yet.
Well, Harry had plans for that, too. It was Christmas, right? Which meant he could get people gifts.
On Mrs. Longbottom’s shoulder, her bronze eagle, Signora, flapped her wings and uttered a screech. Harry gave her a thoughtful look. So far, Golden hadn’t spent enough time around Mrs. Longbottom’s familiar to know if she was one of the ones that would speak to them or not. It would be interesting to find that out.
“Are you ready, Neville? Oh, honestly, you hopeless boy…”
Harry looked at Neville, blinking. He wasn’t doing anything, though. He was just standing there, clutching Trevor, his silver toad familiar, in both hands and looking miserable. But apparently his hair was the problem, because Mrs. Longbottom straightened it with another sigh and a wave of her wand.
“Come on, my lord,” she said, nodding at Harry, and then began walking through King’s Cross as if she was going to make the Muggles get out of the way by sheer force of will.
Harry followed her. He could feel his face getting flushed, and Golden lifted his head and looked at Harry a little anxiously.
“Is she always like that?” he whispered to Neville, when he thought Mrs. Longbottom was far enough ahead not to hear. Signora kept looking back at them, but Harry thought that was more to make sure they didn’t get lost, not spy on them.
“Yeah. It’s just, my dad—Harry, he had a lion familiar. He was a proper Gryffindor. That’s what Gran wants me to be. And I just can’t.” Neville hunched his shoulders and kept walking.
“What happened to your dad? I mean, your parents?” Harry knew that something must have happened to both of Neville’s parents if he was living with his grandmother, but he’d never heard the story.
Neville turned so sickly pale that Harry was sorry he’d asked. He reached up and let Golden twine around his wrist and from there rub his nose against Neville’s cheek. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Thanks, Harry,” Neville said, his head still down. “I wouldn’t mind telling you, but Gran doesn’t want me to tell anyone.”
Harry thought that was strange, but he exchanged a glance with Golden and didn’t say anything more about it. “You started to tell me about the Christmases that you had the last few years. Do you really burn a whole Yule log?”
Neville perked up and started talking, and kept it up even after they Apparated to Longbottom Manor, which Harry was grateful for. He didn’t think he could have coped with a house that large, otherwise.
*
It wasn’t just the size of the manor house that was the problem, honestly, Harry thought that night as he and Golden lay in bed in a bedroom not far from Neville’s. It was so rich. Harry supposed that maybe the Potters had had a house like this once, but he’d never seen it. He just didn’t grow up that way.
I should have.
Harry sighed and turned over, nudging Golden a little, who gave him a patient look before curling up again. Honestly, he didn’t like Dumbledore much, but he was kind of happy he hadn’t grown up with the Longbottoms. Kind of. He didn’t think he would be who he was now if he’d grown up here.
What if he thought people should call him a lord? What if he got too used to eating off gold plates, which they’d actually done tonight? He didn’t want to be the kind of person who strutted past people because he thought having a golden familiar made him better than them.
There were shining curtains on the windows of this room, and there were too many corners that were filled with chairs and desks and tables. And there were mirrors on all the walls. Harry could see needing one so that you didn’t go out with your hair dangling over your eyes, but what was the point of being reflected from every angle?
And Mrs. Longbottom and Signora just kept staring at him as if he was going to do something remarkable any second and they didn’t want to miss it.
She was silent about Neville’s parents, too. She’d asked Harry a question about the Dursleys that made Harry say how much he missed his mum and dad, and Mrs. Longbottom had immediately gone pale and dug into her food.
So Neville’s parents were dead, right? He always talked about his dad like he was. And Harry knew you wouldn’t take away a wizard’s wand and give it to another wizard unless they were dead. Some of the books he’d found in the Hogwarts library when he was looking up the possession ritual were very stern about that.
But Harry hadn’t heard anything about it. And it seemed—there was something like a shadow lurking in the Manor, something that Harry didn’t connect to death. People talked about his dead parents to him all the time. Dead could be heroic. Maybe it had just been a really horrible way for Neville’s parents to die, though.
But no one had said anything about it at school, either, even when they talked about relatives who died in the war. Neville had been silent all the time and holding onto Trevor when that happened. Maybe it had just been a horrible death and Neville didn’t want to talk about it.
That was probably all it was.
Harry closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, although it seemed as if he walked in cold shadows that night for a long time.
*
“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have an animal other than a toad for your familiar.”
“Yes, Gran.”
Harry halted outside the dining room, shocked. It was the day before Christmas, and he knew there was already a huge tree in one corner of the drawing room that he hadn’t been allowed inside yet. Mrs. Longbottom had explained that they opened all but one of their gifts that evening, and would save the biggest or most expensive one for Christmas morning. And she had told Harry in a steely tone that he would be getting gifts from her.
She had seemed like such a nice woman, if stiff. Harry had known that she thought Neville was cowardly and that he should have ended up in Gryffindor, but he’d never thought that she’d go so far as to attack Trevor.
He took a step inside the dining room, and Mrs. Longbottom turned towards him with her version of a welcoming smile on her lips. “How did you sleep last night, my lord?”
“Well enough. Do you think it’s horrible that I have a snake for a familiar, Mrs. Longbottom?”
“I told you that you could call me Gran, like Neville does.”
“And I told you to call me Harry, but you don’t. Anyway, I want to know the answer. Do you think me having a serpent as a familiar is inappropriate?”
Mrs. Longbottom looked around as if she was trying to decide whether or not she needed to escape, but there was nowhere to go. Signora, on her shoulder, stretched her bronze wings curiously as she stared at Harry. Neville, with Trevor cradled in his hands close against his chest, was looking at Harry, too, but in astonishment.
Mrs. Longbottom finally cleared her throat and asked, “Why would it be?”
“Some people thought it was inappropriate because they thought a serpent was a sign of evil. And they thought only Slytherins should have one. And Voldemort’s familiar is a serpent, so they think I could be evil, too.”
“But that’s ridiculous! Serpent familiars are noble. And yours is gold. That ought to be enough to curb such stupid, chattering tongues if anything is!”
“And Neville’s familiar is silver, Mrs. Longbottom. Which means, if we go by the usual way of thinking about things, that he’s stronger than you. So why were you yelling at him for something he couldn’t even help, like he and Trevor are worthless?”
Neville looked as if he was going to faint. He edged over towards the wall, and Trevor stood up on his hind legs and croaked anxiously. Mrs. Longbottom just stared at Harry. Then she said, “His father was a great man.”
“So what? My parents were great people, too, but they would have been proud of me if I had a silver familiar, or a cockroach familiar, or a tin one! Don’t yell at Neville! I understand that you’re sad that your son died, but you can’t take it out on Neville!”
“No one in my day spoke to their elders in such an insolent tone, young man.”
“And I thought kind people didn’t talk to their grandchildren the way you talked to Neville, either, but I suppose I was wrong.”
“Remember that I am still your guardian, young man, and I can send you to your room!”
“Fine. Do it. It’s not a patch on anything that the Dursleys did to me. And that still wouldn’t make it right for you to yell at Neville, no matter what kind of familiar he was born with!”
Mrs. Longbottom couldn’t seem to think of anything to say to that. Signora turned her head back and forth, but said nothing, either. Golden nuzzled up to Harry’s side, and Harry knew it was time to stop yelling at her and do something about Neville and breakfast.
“Come on, Neville,” he said, holding out his hand. “I have some Galleons. We can go to Diagon Alley and have breakfast.”
“How are you going to get there?” Mrs. Longbottom demanded. “You can’t Apparate!”
“I know how to use the Floo,” Harry said coolly. He’d used it several times when he had to go back and forth from the Ministry to Hogwarts for Dumbledore’s trial. “And if you get bad enough, there are other people who will take me in. I wanted to be here. But you’re being horrible and unfair.”
“Harry.” Neville’s voice was small. He looked as if he was clutching Trevor so hard now that Trevor might actually break apart in his hands.
“Am I scaring you, Neville?” Harry hoped he wouldn’t, and Neville didn’t act that scared of Harry, but after hearing the way his grandmother yelled at him, Harry understood where a lot of his problems came from now.
“Um. Not really?” Neville was glancing wildly back and forth between Harry and his grandmother as if he didn’t know what to do next.
“Good. C’mon, Nev.”
Harry walked out of the room, and there was a long moment when he honestly wasn’t sure Neville would follow, but then he straightened his shoulders and walked after Harry. He was still shaking, but not squeezing Trevor.
And Golden was slithering beside him, and Harry was sure that he would take care of any danger they got into, and that he approved of Harry and thought he was doing the right thing.
Harry found the main Floo in the fireplace where they’d sat last night, and threw powder into it. “Diagon Alley!”
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: None, gen
Content Notes: AU, familiars, angst, mentions of the canon fate of the Longbottoms
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Staying at Longbottom Manor for Christmas with his new guardian Augusta Longbottom, Harry can’t help observing some of the problems that Neville has—and trying to help.
Author’s Notes: This is part of my “Children of the Sun” series, and follows Silver Shadow Snake. This will be a short part that covers Christmas of Harry’s first year.
The Secrets of Longbottom Manor
Part One
“Are you ready, Mr. Potter?”
Harry looked up and nodded. Mrs. Longbottom held his shrunken trunk in one hand, and Neville’s in the other. Neville had tried to shrink his own and failed. Mrs. Longbottom had just sighed and muttered something about “of course” before she took over the chore herself.
Harry knew that the reason Neville failed was that he was still using his father’s wand. He had talked to Mrs. Longbottom once before about changing that, but she hadn’t listened yet.
Well, Harry had plans for that, too. It was Christmas, right? Which meant he could get people gifts.
On Mrs. Longbottom’s shoulder, her bronze eagle, Signora, flapped her wings and uttered a screech. Harry gave her a thoughtful look. So far, Golden hadn’t spent enough time around Mrs. Longbottom’s familiar to know if she was one of the ones that would speak to them or not. It would be interesting to find that out.
“Are you ready, Neville? Oh, honestly, you hopeless boy…”
Harry looked at Neville, blinking. He wasn’t doing anything, though. He was just standing there, clutching Trevor, his silver toad familiar, in both hands and looking miserable. But apparently his hair was the problem, because Mrs. Longbottom straightened it with another sigh and a wave of her wand.
“Come on, my lord,” she said, nodding at Harry, and then began walking through King’s Cross as if she was going to make the Muggles get out of the way by sheer force of will.
Harry followed her. He could feel his face getting flushed, and Golden lifted his head and looked at Harry a little anxiously.
“Is she always like that?” he whispered to Neville, when he thought Mrs. Longbottom was far enough ahead not to hear. Signora kept looking back at them, but Harry thought that was more to make sure they didn’t get lost, not spy on them.
“Yeah. It’s just, my dad—Harry, he had a lion familiar. He was a proper Gryffindor. That’s what Gran wants me to be. And I just can’t.” Neville hunched his shoulders and kept walking.
“What happened to your dad? I mean, your parents?” Harry knew that something must have happened to both of Neville’s parents if he was living with his grandmother, but he’d never heard the story.
Neville turned so sickly pale that Harry was sorry he’d asked. He reached up and let Golden twine around his wrist and from there rub his nose against Neville’s cheek. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Thanks, Harry,” Neville said, his head still down. “I wouldn’t mind telling you, but Gran doesn’t want me to tell anyone.”
Harry thought that was strange, but he exchanged a glance with Golden and didn’t say anything more about it. “You started to tell me about the Christmases that you had the last few years. Do you really burn a whole Yule log?”
Neville perked up and started talking, and kept it up even after they Apparated to Longbottom Manor, which Harry was grateful for. He didn’t think he could have coped with a house that large, otherwise.
*
It wasn’t just the size of the manor house that was the problem, honestly, Harry thought that night as he and Golden lay in bed in a bedroom not far from Neville’s. It was so rich. Harry supposed that maybe the Potters had had a house like this once, but he’d never seen it. He just didn’t grow up that way.
I should have.
Harry sighed and turned over, nudging Golden a little, who gave him a patient look before curling up again. Honestly, he didn’t like Dumbledore much, but he was kind of happy he hadn’t grown up with the Longbottoms. Kind of. He didn’t think he would be who he was now if he’d grown up here.
What if he thought people should call him a lord? What if he got too used to eating off gold plates, which they’d actually done tonight? He didn’t want to be the kind of person who strutted past people because he thought having a golden familiar made him better than them.
There were shining curtains on the windows of this room, and there were too many corners that were filled with chairs and desks and tables. And there were mirrors on all the walls. Harry could see needing one so that you didn’t go out with your hair dangling over your eyes, but what was the point of being reflected from every angle?
And Mrs. Longbottom and Signora just kept staring at him as if he was going to do something remarkable any second and they didn’t want to miss it.
She was silent about Neville’s parents, too. She’d asked Harry a question about the Dursleys that made Harry say how much he missed his mum and dad, and Mrs. Longbottom had immediately gone pale and dug into her food.
So Neville’s parents were dead, right? He always talked about his dad like he was. And Harry knew you wouldn’t take away a wizard’s wand and give it to another wizard unless they were dead. Some of the books he’d found in the Hogwarts library when he was looking up the possession ritual were very stern about that.
But Harry hadn’t heard anything about it. And it seemed—there was something like a shadow lurking in the Manor, something that Harry didn’t connect to death. People talked about his dead parents to him all the time. Dead could be heroic. Maybe it had just been a really horrible way for Neville’s parents to die, though.
But no one had said anything about it at school, either, even when they talked about relatives who died in the war. Neville had been silent all the time and holding onto Trevor when that happened. Maybe it had just been a horrible death and Neville didn’t want to talk about it.
That was probably all it was.
Harry closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, although it seemed as if he walked in cold shadows that night for a long time.
*
“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have an animal other than a toad for your familiar.”
“Yes, Gran.”
Harry halted outside the dining room, shocked. It was the day before Christmas, and he knew there was already a huge tree in one corner of the drawing room that he hadn’t been allowed inside yet. Mrs. Longbottom had explained that they opened all but one of their gifts that evening, and would save the biggest or most expensive one for Christmas morning. And she had told Harry in a steely tone that he would be getting gifts from her.
She had seemed like such a nice woman, if stiff. Harry had known that she thought Neville was cowardly and that he should have ended up in Gryffindor, but he’d never thought that she’d go so far as to attack Trevor.
He took a step inside the dining room, and Mrs. Longbottom turned towards him with her version of a welcoming smile on her lips. “How did you sleep last night, my lord?”
“Well enough. Do you think it’s horrible that I have a snake for a familiar, Mrs. Longbottom?”
“I told you that you could call me Gran, like Neville does.”
“And I told you to call me Harry, but you don’t. Anyway, I want to know the answer. Do you think me having a serpent as a familiar is inappropriate?”
Mrs. Longbottom looked around as if she was trying to decide whether or not she needed to escape, but there was nowhere to go. Signora, on her shoulder, stretched her bronze wings curiously as she stared at Harry. Neville, with Trevor cradled in his hands close against his chest, was looking at Harry, too, but in astonishment.
Mrs. Longbottom finally cleared her throat and asked, “Why would it be?”
“Some people thought it was inappropriate because they thought a serpent was a sign of evil. And they thought only Slytherins should have one. And Voldemort’s familiar is a serpent, so they think I could be evil, too.”
“But that’s ridiculous! Serpent familiars are noble. And yours is gold. That ought to be enough to curb such stupid, chattering tongues if anything is!”
“And Neville’s familiar is silver, Mrs. Longbottom. Which means, if we go by the usual way of thinking about things, that he’s stronger than you. So why were you yelling at him for something he couldn’t even help, like he and Trevor are worthless?”
Neville looked as if he was going to faint. He edged over towards the wall, and Trevor stood up on his hind legs and croaked anxiously. Mrs. Longbottom just stared at Harry. Then she said, “His father was a great man.”
“So what? My parents were great people, too, but they would have been proud of me if I had a silver familiar, or a cockroach familiar, or a tin one! Don’t yell at Neville! I understand that you’re sad that your son died, but you can’t take it out on Neville!”
“No one in my day spoke to their elders in such an insolent tone, young man.”
“And I thought kind people didn’t talk to their grandchildren the way you talked to Neville, either, but I suppose I was wrong.”
“Remember that I am still your guardian, young man, and I can send you to your room!”
“Fine. Do it. It’s not a patch on anything that the Dursleys did to me. And that still wouldn’t make it right for you to yell at Neville, no matter what kind of familiar he was born with!”
Mrs. Longbottom couldn’t seem to think of anything to say to that. Signora turned her head back and forth, but said nothing, either. Golden nuzzled up to Harry’s side, and Harry knew it was time to stop yelling at her and do something about Neville and breakfast.
“Come on, Neville,” he said, holding out his hand. “I have some Galleons. We can go to Diagon Alley and have breakfast.”
“How are you going to get there?” Mrs. Longbottom demanded. “You can’t Apparate!”
“I know how to use the Floo,” Harry said coolly. He’d used it several times when he had to go back and forth from the Ministry to Hogwarts for Dumbledore’s trial. “And if you get bad enough, there are other people who will take me in. I wanted to be here. But you’re being horrible and unfair.”
“Harry.” Neville’s voice was small. He looked as if he was clutching Trevor so hard now that Trevor might actually break apart in his hands.
“Am I scaring you, Neville?” Harry hoped he wouldn’t, and Neville didn’t act that scared of Harry, but after hearing the way his grandmother yelled at him, Harry understood where a lot of his problems came from now.
“Um. Not really?” Neville was glancing wildly back and forth between Harry and his grandmother as if he didn’t know what to do next.
“Good. C’mon, Nev.”
Harry walked out of the room, and there was a long moment when he honestly wasn’t sure Neville would follow, but then he straightened his shoulders and walked after Harry. He was still shaking, but not squeezing Trevor.
And Golden was slithering beside him, and Harry was sure that he would take care of any danger they got into, and that he approved of Harry and thought he was doing the right thing.
Harry found the main Floo in the fireplace where they’d sat last night, and threw powder into it. “Diagon Alley!”
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Date: 2018-09-24 01:15 pm (UTC)