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j_lunaticDraft for comments. I have only vague ideas about what I want to do with this story, and at this point am leery of trying to write a full, multi-part Year Seven fic.
"Protego! Was that Tarantallegra?"
"Good!" Mad-Eye Moody made another gesture with a twig.
In response, Neville dodged to the left and behind a tree. "Expelliarmus?"
"Not quite. It was Jelly-Legs, but the wand movement is almost the same." And Moody raised the twig and gestured again.
Once again Neville hopped to the side and behind a massive oak. "That was Cruciatus?"
"Good eye!"
"Can we take a break? I'm still sore from those yoghurt exercises Tonks did with me yesterday."
"You mean yoga. Although what sort of exercise is it to sit on your arse and tie your legs in a knot...." Neville took Moody's grumbling as assent and crossed the lawn to sit at his mentor’s feet.
After Dumbledore died and Kreacher had compromised the security of 12 Grimmauld Place, Moody had retreated to Lancashire to regroup what remained of the Order of the Phoenix. He was staying at the farmhouse where Neville had been raised, to train the young man in anticipation of the forthcoming war with Voldemort and his Death Eater followers.
Today Moody had been coaching Neville in recognizing nonverbal curses and hexes by their associated wand movements. The former Auror was reviewing the resources available to the Order, bringing these men and women to Neville's home, to train the young man in the various skills they could provide to the war effort. One day was spent studying wand-to-wand combat with Kingsley Shacklebolt; another on first aid with Augustus Pye; another, with Tonks, on basic and evasive broom flight. In the evenings Moody often continued Neville's training, on topics such as resisting the Imperius curse, or questioning a possibly hostile source without putting him on his guard.
Occasionally Neville wondered if he shouldn't resent that his summer holidays were being spent on education, at a more intensive pace than he had ever known during the regular school year at Hogwarts. The hours he usually passed in the greenhouse, or with the latest edition of a Herbology journal, had been compressed into stolen minutes between being instructed in remedial Potions or forensic Transfiguration. Officially he supposed that this stoic march to war was inevitable. Yet on days when the scheduled training felt like the prospect of eating one's way through a cubic metre of dry toast, Neville wondered if he and Moody weren't so much facing up to the impending conflict as working themselves into a stuporous denial.
"It's a good time to stop anyways," said Moody, snapping his pocket watch shut, "since it'll be time for lunch shortly."
"Are we expecting anyone to lunch with us today?"
The stream of visitors in and out of the house meant that more often than not Neville, his grandmother, and Moody had company at meals. One day Neville and his Gran had lunched on sandwiches and cider in his greenhouse, while in the dining room Remus Lupin briefed Moody on conditions and attitudes among the werewolf packs since the capture of Fenrir Greyback at Hogwarts. The next day found the house elves in their most smartly draped tea towels, and Neville making conversation with Griselda Marchbanks and Minerva McGonagall at one end of the table, while at the other end, Moody and Gran formally disclosed the existence of the Order of the Phoenix to Great-Uncle Rufus (Minister for Magic Scrimgeour to the rest of the wizarding world).
After this meal, Scrimgeour had made a point of taking Neville for a walk across the lawns. A quartet of Hit Wizard bodyguards dispersed themselves across the yard, watching the minister. The elder man paused beside the hazel shrub Neville had been attempting to train into the form of a lion, and stared at his great-nephew's face.
Neville recognized the look, knowing that the viewer was seeking in the son's face a resemblance to the parents, the "living martyrs" Alice and Frank Longbottom. (Neville hardly recognized himself in the mirror these days; the constant training, usually in the open air, had broadened his shoulders, slimmed and tanned his face, and lightened his sandy hair.) He reminded himself that Scrimgeour not only was family but, as former Head of the Auror Office, had known his parents at the prime of their careers.
"Tell me, Neville," Scrimgeour queried, sounding slightly hesitant, "have you thought much about what you want to do when you leave Hogwarts? I understand from Augusta and Moody that Herbology is your favourite subject."
"Yes. I want to start a publishing firm to reprint classic, out-of-print Herbology texts, and publish new work. Assuming that Hogwarts reopens this fall, I'm going to do a special project where I draw up the business plan, prepare a budget, and look for financing."
Scrimgeour raised his eyebrows and nodded at this straightforward response. "An excellent idea. I'm pleased to see a young man with such a well-thought-out plan. Still, have you thought of becoming an Auror? I'm sure you know from Moody -– he told me how he's training you -– that very soon the Ministry will need as many capable people on its side as possible."
"I didn’t qualify to take NEWT-level Potions or Transfiguration," Neville responded, immediately regretting his curtness. "And I wouldn't ask the Ministry to compromise its standards, especially when public safety is at stake."
"I must remember to tell Augusta what a conscientious young man she raised. And please don't rule out a possible career with the Ministry in some capacity -– Moody tells me you have a first-class mind, and could be a true public asset."
Neville nodded in response to the flattering words, recognizing Moody's suggestions for playing up to a potentially hostile interviewee.
"Has Moody or your grandmother talked to you about what your parents did as Aurors? The files on your father's work will be sealed for the next century at least, but your mother was a tremendous asset to the Internal Affairs Office. Actually, she ran the group for about a year after Caradoc Dearborn disappeared.
"Those were very dark days. The war was in its most violent stages, we Aurors had been given extraordinary latitude in the use of the Unforgivable Curses, and -– even before the Potters were killed -– the public was screaming at us to use them to the utmost to bring down You-Know-Who and his followers. During this time the Internal Affairs Office, and especially your mother, helped maintain a sense of balance, of probity in the Ministry. Alice, and the rest of Internal Affairs, could not have been more scrupulously fair in reviewing how the Ministry was waging war, asking us if the Ministry wasn't abusing its prerogatives and the public's trust.
"The reason I'm telling you this is that if the Ministry must go to war, I hope that you, and your peers, and the public can understand what the Ministry is doing right now in the face of the return of...well, You-Know-Who. And I think you can help us with this."
Neville frowned, struggling to comprehend what Scrimgeour had told him. "Why are you telling me this? I'm no leader, I'll never be Harry Potter."
Scrimgeour smiled in response. "Don't underestimate yourself like that." He paused. "Tell me, what do you think about prophecies and Divination?"
Neville, here on much more familiar ground, shrugged. "As far as I know, the only prediction by my Divination instructor that ever came to pass was that I would break a teacup."
"Dumbledore never discussed the topic with you?"
"Dumbledore never discussed anything with me."
Scrimgeour's leonine face softened. "You weren't up on the tower when Dumbledore died, were you?"
"No, some sort of barrier knocked me out at a lower level. But I wasn't surprised at all to hear that Snape killed him," Neville responded bitterly.
Scrimgeour nodded sympathetically. "Albus Dumbledore was a great man. Everyone I've spoken to since his death has been devastated. It would be catastrophic if his death was in vain."
Neville knew he was being manipulated, and itched to ask his great-uncle just what was his point, but couldn't bring himself to say anything so forthright.
"Can you tell me anything about a group that supposedly met at Hogwarts year before last -– this would have been during your fifth year -– called either the Defence Association, or Dumbledore's Army?"
Neville tried to keep a straight face at these words, but he knew that Scrimgeour must have correctly interpreted the way he had pressed his mouth shut and choked back his recognition.
"Doesn't mean anything to you? Dolores Umbridge was telling me all sorts of stories -– oh, she's a thoroughly poisonous woman," Scrimgeour interjected, obviously having noted Neville's scowl in response to the name he had dropped, "and it was hard to make out anything she was saying in between ranting about centaurs. But the organization she described sounded like a very, very good idea. Moody and I have been asking Dumbledore for years what's been going on with Defence Against the Dark Arts instruction at Hogwarts -– for decades now we've been getting Auror training applicants who can barely cast an effective Expelliarmus!
"I specifically asked Moody and your grandmother to ask Professor McGonagall to lunch today, so I could talk to her about reopening Hogwarts this September. The Board of Governors still has to vote on reopening, but I pledged to her that if the school reopens the Ministry would provide it and Hogsmeade with an even greater security presence than this past year. Even if, as she mentioned, a lot of parents are saying they don't want to send their children there under...well, the current circumstances.
"Now, I also have a role for you in this plan. If Hogwarts reopens, do you think you could establish a group like the Defence Association? It would be completely open and above-board, you'd have the full support of the school and the Ministry. You'll have Moody at the school with you, probably as Chief of Security, for help. But I need you to talk to and recruit your peers, help them understand what's going on, what they can do to protect themselves and the wizarding world. What do you say to that?"
Neville belatedly realized that his jaw had dropped at his great-uncle's proposal. He had missed Dumbledore's Army tremendously during the last school year. The memory of a period in which he had felt that he belonged to a group and that he could accomplish something outside of a greenhouse was intoxicating. But he quailed at the idea of being asked to step up and lead an organization, of this nature or any other. "B-but do you think I'm the sort of person who could lead, and teach a group of people?"
Scrimgeour smiled at his great-nephew. "Now you're really being unfair to yourself. Professor Sprout told me directly she's sorry to refer so many students to you for Herbology tutoring, but she's never known anyone else with such a knack for helping students understand."
Though thoroughly awed at the responsibility he had been asked to assume, Neville managed to gasp, "Well, in that case I'd be willing to try."
"Splendid! I'll let you know as soon as the Board of Governors votes whether or not to reopen Hogwarts." Scrimgeour clapped a hand to Neville's shoulder. "It's been a treat to see you again. Really, Augusta shouldn't have kept you hidden away here in Lancashire all these years! I hope we'll meet again in the near future?" Neville nodded his assent to the suggestion.
"I wish Alice and Frank could comprehend just what sort of a man you're becoming. Augusta tells me that during the holidays you visit your parents once a week, on Wednesdays, at 3 o'clock? I'll see you next week at St Mungo's." Scrimgeour stared at Neville again, undoubtedly seeing his niece in the young man's face. "And when you draft that business plan and budget you mentioned, I'd like to see them. Your other relatives and I might be able to help you with financing." He shook Neville's hand and briskly walked back to the house, followed by his escort of Hit Wizards.
With a pop, Pirri, the senior Longbottom house elf, materialized in front of Neville and Moody. "Begging your pardons, Mister Neville and Mister Moody, but lunch is ready very shortly."
With the assistance of a walking stick, Moody dragged himself up from the tree stump on which he had been sitting. "No one for lunch today, but Hestia Jones will be here tonight, for dinner and to work with you on Occlumency. I expect last week Scrimgeour was able to read your mind as if it had been A Is for Ashwinder."
"I know," Neville confessed, "but when he started talking about Dumbledore's Army I just got so excited."
"You really missed that group last year, didn’t you?" Neville nodded. "Well, Scrimgeour's plan makes a lot of sense. If he talks to you about it again at St Mungo's this afternoon, let me know what he says." And the two men went into the house for lunch.
"Protego! Was that Tarantallegra?"
"Good!" Mad-Eye Moody made another gesture with a twig.
In response, Neville dodged to the left and behind a tree. "Expelliarmus?"
"Not quite. It was Jelly-Legs, but the wand movement is almost the same." And Moody raised the twig and gestured again.
Once again Neville hopped to the side and behind a massive oak. "That was Cruciatus?"
"Good eye!"
"Can we take a break? I'm still sore from those yoghurt exercises Tonks did with me yesterday."
"You mean yoga. Although what sort of exercise is it to sit on your arse and tie your legs in a knot...." Neville took Moody's grumbling as assent and crossed the lawn to sit at his mentor’s feet.
After Dumbledore died and Kreacher had compromised the security of 12 Grimmauld Place, Moody had retreated to Lancashire to regroup what remained of the Order of the Phoenix. He was staying at the farmhouse where Neville had been raised, to train the young man in anticipation of the forthcoming war with Voldemort and his Death Eater followers.
Today Moody had been coaching Neville in recognizing nonverbal curses and hexes by their associated wand movements. The former Auror was reviewing the resources available to the Order, bringing these men and women to Neville's home, to train the young man in the various skills they could provide to the war effort. One day was spent studying wand-to-wand combat with Kingsley Shacklebolt; another on first aid with Augustus Pye; another, with Tonks, on basic and evasive broom flight. In the evenings Moody often continued Neville's training, on topics such as resisting the Imperius curse, or questioning a possibly hostile source without putting him on his guard.
Occasionally Neville wondered if he shouldn't resent that his summer holidays were being spent on education, at a more intensive pace than he had ever known during the regular school year at Hogwarts. The hours he usually passed in the greenhouse, or with the latest edition of a Herbology journal, had been compressed into stolen minutes between being instructed in remedial Potions or forensic Transfiguration. Officially he supposed that this stoic march to war was inevitable. Yet on days when the scheduled training felt like the prospect of eating one's way through a cubic metre of dry toast, Neville wondered if he and Moody weren't so much facing up to the impending conflict as working themselves into a stuporous denial.
"It's a good time to stop anyways," said Moody, snapping his pocket watch shut, "since it'll be time for lunch shortly."
"Are we expecting anyone to lunch with us today?"
The stream of visitors in and out of the house meant that more often than not Neville, his grandmother, and Moody had company at meals. One day Neville and his Gran had lunched on sandwiches and cider in his greenhouse, while in the dining room Remus Lupin briefed Moody on conditions and attitudes among the werewolf packs since the capture of Fenrir Greyback at Hogwarts. The next day found the house elves in their most smartly draped tea towels, and Neville making conversation with Griselda Marchbanks and Minerva McGonagall at one end of the table, while at the other end, Moody and Gran formally disclosed the existence of the Order of the Phoenix to Great-Uncle Rufus (Minister for Magic Scrimgeour to the rest of the wizarding world).
After this meal, Scrimgeour had made a point of taking Neville for a walk across the lawns. A quartet of Hit Wizard bodyguards dispersed themselves across the yard, watching the minister. The elder man paused beside the hazel shrub Neville had been attempting to train into the form of a lion, and stared at his great-nephew's face.
Neville recognized the look, knowing that the viewer was seeking in the son's face a resemblance to the parents, the "living martyrs" Alice and Frank Longbottom. (Neville hardly recognized himself in the mirror these days; the constant training, usually in the open air, had broadened his shoulders, slimmed and tanned his face, and lightened his sandy hair.) He reminded himself that Scrimgeour not only was family but, as former Head of the Auror Office, had known his parents at the prime of their careers.
"Tell me, Neville," Scrimgeour queried, sounding slightly hesitant, "have you thought much about what you want to do when you leave Hogwarts? I understand from Augusta and Moody that Herbology is your favourite subject."
"Yes. I want to start a publishing firm to reprint classic, out-of-print Herbology texts, and publish new work. Assuming that Hogwarts reopens this fall, I'm going to do a special project where I draw up the business plan, prepare a budget, and look for financing."
Scrimgeour raised his eyebrows and nodded at this straightforward response. "An excellent idea. I'm pleased to see a young man with such a well-thought-out plan. Still, have you thought of becoming an Auror? I'm sure you know from Moody -– he told me how he's training you -– that very soon the Ministry will need as many capable people on its side as possible."
"I didn’t qualify to take NEWT-level Potions or Transfiguration," Neville responded, immediately regretting his curtness. "And I wouldn't ask the Ministry to compromise its standards, especially when public safety is at stake."
"I must remember to tell Augusta what a conscientious young man she raised. And please don't rule out a possible career with the Ministry in some capacity -– Moody tells me you have a first-class mind, and could be a true public asset."
Neville nodded in response to the flattering words, recognizing Moody's suggestions for playing up to a potentially hostile interviewee.
"Has Moody or your grandmother talked to you about what your parents did as Aurors? The files on your father's work will be sealed for the next century at least, but your mother was a tremendous asset to the Internal Affairs Office. Actually, she ran the group for about a year after Caradoc Dearborn disappeared.
"Those were very dark days. The war was in its most violent stages, we Aurors had been given extraordinary latitude in the use of the Unforgivable Curses, and -– even before the Potters were killed -– the public was screaming at us to use them to the utmost to bring down You-Know-Who and his followers. During this time the Internal Affairs Office, and especially your mother, helped maintain a sense of balance, of probity in the Ministry. Alice, and the rest of Internal Affairs, could not have been more scrupulously fair in reviewing how the Ministry was waging war, asking us if the Ministry wasn't abusing its prerogatives and the public's trust.
"The reason I'm telling you this is that if the Ministry must go to war, I hope that you, and your peers, and the public can understand what the Ministry is doing right now in the face of the return of...well, You-Know-Who. And I think you can help us with this."
Neville frowned, struggling to comprehend what Scrimgeour had told him. "Why are you telling me this? I'm no leader, I'll never be Harry Potter."
Scrimgeour smiled in response. "Don't underestimate yourself like that." He paused. "Tell me, what do you think about prophecies and Divination?"
Neville, here on much more familiar ground, shrugged. "As far as I know, the only prediction by my Divination instructor that ever came to pass was that I would break a teacup."
"Dumbledore never discussed the topic with you?"
"Dumbledore never discussed anything with me."
Scrimgeour's leonine face softened. "You weren't up on the tower when Dumbledore died, were you?"
"No, some sort of barrier knocked me out at a lower level. But I wasn't surprised at all to hear that Snape killed him," Neville responded bitterly.
Scrimgeour nodded sympathetically. "Albus Dumbledore was a great man. Everyone I've spoken to since his death has been devastated. It would be catastrophic if his death was in vain."
Neville knew he was being manipulated, and itched to ask his great-uncle just what was his point, but couldn't bring himself to say anything so forthright.
"Can you tell me anything about a group that supposedly met at Hogwarts year before last -– this would have been during your fifth year -– called either the Defence Association, or Dumbledore's Army?"
Neville tried to keep a straight face at these words, but he knew that Scrimgeour must have correctly interpreted the way he had pressed his mouth shut and choked back his recognition.
"Doesn't mean anything to you? Dolores Umbridge was telling me all sorts of stories -– oh, she's a thoroughly poisonous woman," Scrimgeour interjected, obviously having noted Neville's scowl in response to the name he had dropped, "and it was hard to make out anything she was saying in between ranting about centaurs. But the organization she described sounded like a very, very good idea. Moody and I have been asking Dumbledore for years what's been going on with Defence Against the Dark Arts instruction at Hogwarts -– for decades now we've been getting Auror training applicants who can barely cast an effective Expelliarmus!
"I specifically asked Moody and your grandmother to ask Professor McGonagall to lunch today, so I could talk to her about reopening Hogwarts this September. The Board of Governors still has to vote on reopening, but I pledged to her that if the school reopens the Ministry would provide it and Hogsmeade with an even greater security presence than this past year. Even if, as she mentioned, a lot of parents are saying they don't want to send their children there under...well, the current circumstances.
"Now, I also have a role for you in this plan. If Hogwarts reopens, do you think you could establish a group like the Defence Association? It would be completely open and above-board, you'd have the full support of the school and the Ministry. You'll have Moody at the school with you, probably as Chief of Security, for help. But I need you to talk to and recruit your peers, help them understand what's going on, what they can do to protect themselves and the wizarding world. What do you say to that?"
Neville belatedly realized that his jaw had dropped at his great-uncle's proposal. He had missed Dumbledore's Army tremendously during the last school year. The memory of a period in which he had felt that he belonged to a group and that he could accomplish something outside of a greenhouse was intoxicating. But he quailed at the idea of being asked to step up and lead an organization, of this nature or any other. "B-but do you think I'm the sort of person who could lead, and teach a group of people?"
Scrimgeour smiled at his great-nephew. "Now you're really being unfair to yourself. Professor Sprout told me directly she's sorry to refer so many students to you for Herbology tutoring, but she's never known anyone else with such a knack for helping students understand."
Though thoroughly awed at the responsibility he had been asked to assume, Neville managed to gasp, "Well, in that case I'd be willing to try."
"Splendid! I'll let you know as soon as the Board of Governors votes whether or not to reopen Hogwarts." Scrimgeour clapped a hand to Neville's shoulder. "It's been a treat to see you again. Really, Augusta shouldn't have kept you hidden away here in Lancashire all these years! I hope we'll meet again in the near future?" Neville nodded his assent to the suggestion.
"I wish Alice and Frank could comprehend just what sort of a man you're becoming. Augusta tells me that during the holidays you visit your parents once a week, on Wednesdays, at 3 o'clock? I'll see you next week at St Mungo's." Scrimgeour stared at Neville again, undoubtedly seeing his niece in the young man's face. "And when you draft that business plan and budget you mentioned, I'd like to see them. Your other relatives and I might be able to help you with financing." He shook Neville's hand and briskly walked back to the house, followed by his escort of Hit Wizards.
With a pop, Pirri, the senior Longbottom house elf, materialized in front of Neville and Moody. "Begging your pardons, Mister Neville and Mister Moody, but lunch is ready very shortly."
With the assistance of a walking stick, Moody dragged himself up from the tree stump on which he had been sitting. "No one for lunch today, but Hestia Jones will be here tonight, for dinner and to work with you on Occlumency. I expect last week Scrimgeour was able to read your mind as if it had been A Is for Ashwinder."
"I know," Neville confessed, "but when he started talking about Dumbledore's Army I just got so excited."
"You really missed that group last year, didn’t you?" Neville nodded. "Well, Scrimgeour's plan makes a lot of sense. If he talks to you about it again at St Mungo's this afternoon, let me know what he says." And the two men went into the house for lunch.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-05 01:28 am (UTC)Thank you, Jess
(PS: This fic is brilliant! *squishes you*)