Room to Grow

[starspray]

Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: General
Characters: Neville Longbottom, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood
Warnings: n/a
Summary:“Oh, I also brought a friend.” She reached into her robes and pulled out the smallest bowtruckle Neville had ever seen.
Note: Written for Maidenjedi for the GenEx 2017 exchange on AO3

AO3

 

A few days after the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, Luna came to visit.

Neville was in the greenhouse he’d built the summer before, repotting some mandrakes, so he didn’t realize Luna was there until he turned to see her waving cheerfully at him through the glass. He waved back and held up a couple of fingers to say he’d be out in a few minutes. She nodded, and wandered off toward the patch of garden where he had planted some more mundane plants that had little use, magically speaking, although the apple tree produced some very sweet fruit, and his grandmother approved of the herbs for her cooking.

Mandrakes happy in their new pots, Neville removed the earmuffs and went outside. “Hi, Luna,” he said, finding her inspecting his basil plants.

“Hi, Neville.” She smiled at him. “I haven’t seen a mandrake since leaving school.”

“Yeah, Gran wants them for some potions,” Neville said. His gran had been surprisingly supportive of his herbology pursuits, since he’d left school. She hadn’t even done more than raise an eyebrow when he started bringing home the occasional book on Muggle botany from the library downtown. And working with the mandrakes took extra concentration, something Neville did not object to, especially around this time of year.

“I saw Hannah Abbot at the Leaky Cauldron,” Luna said. “She asked me to tell you hello.” Neville felt his face heat, but Luna either didn’t notice or ignored this. “Or at least, I think she did. It was hard to hear; a fight had broken out, you see, and she was quite busy.

“Oh, I also brought a friend.” She reached into her robes and pulled out the smallest bowtruckle Neville had ever seen. It was only about four inches long, and it clung to Luna’s fingers rather forlornly. “Some Muggles were cutting down timber where he lived, and they cut down his tree,” Luna said. “With their big machines, you know, so he couldn’t do anything about it. I thought maybe you’d have something suitable in your garden.”

“Oh. Well...they like wand-trees, right? I don’t think I have one of those.” He’d never really thought about it before, but Neville had no idea what made a wand-tree a wand -tree. His own wand was made of cherry wood, but what made that particular cherry tree more special than all the other cherry trees? But those were questions for Mr. Ollivander, maybe, if he remembered the next time he went to Diagon Alley.

“What about that one?” Luna asked, pointing to an apple tree in the back. It had been a sickly thing all of Neville’s childhood, until he started school and learned about fertilizer, and certain spells that would encourage it to grow and bear fruit--once he managed to convince Gran to cast them, anyway, since he had still been underage. It was doing much better, now, especially since he could cast spells himself.

“Oh. Maybe.” Neville trailed after Luna as she made her way to the tree, the bowtruckle perking up as they neared it. It hopped quite happily from Luna’s hand onto the nearest flowering branch. She pulled a pouch out of another pocket of her robes and opened it, revealing little rice-like woodlice, and she nestled the pouch in a small fork near the trunk.

“There,” she said, pleased. “He’ll be quite happy in your garden, Neville. I’ve been calling him Sam,” she said, as the bowtruckle scuttled over to the bag and began feasting. “Thank you, Neville.”

“You’re welcome. Er, do you want to stay for tea?”

“That would be nice.” Luna peered up at him as they turned to go back to the house. “Don’t you have work?”

“Oh, er…” Neville rubbed the back of his neck. “I quit.” Being an Auror was--well, it was a lot, and he still wasn’t that good at Transfiguration, and he’d only agreed to do it because Gran had been so proud, and his parents had been Aurors, but… “They don’t really need me,” he said, when the silence stretched a little too long. “Harry’s great, I mean, he would be, but.” He shrugged. Harry had been fighting dark wizards since their very first year at Hogwarts, and Neville sometimes thought that Harry only became an Auror because he didn’t know how to do anything else. Spending his days in the Aurors’ office at the Ministry had left Neville exhausted and constantly on edge, never able to get a decent night’s sleep. It had been a lot like his seventh year at Hogwarts, really, and Neville had finally decided he’d had enough. “Gran’s got a friend with a farm--a real big one, he supplies shops in Diagon Alley and St. Mungo’s, and things. I start working for him next week, handling some of the trickier plants. You know, like Devil’s Snare, and the like.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Luna said. They stepped inside, and she waited while Neville removed his muddy boots. “You’ll be much happier there,” she said, rather decisively.

“Yeah.” Neville went to check on Trevor in his terrarium, and then led Luna back to the kitchen. “Gran’s out,” he said, perhaps unnecessarily--if his gran were there, she would have already come out to dominate all conversation. She’d wanted Neville to go with her--there was some party their neighbors were having--but he’d begged off on account of the mandrakes. “We’ve got some biscuits somewhere.”

“I’ll make tea,” Luna said, going to fill the kettle.

It was a lot like being back in the Room of Requirement, where they’d lived off tea and biscuits and whatever people could sneak out of the kitchens (Snape had not, it seemed, forbidden the house elves from feeding them). Luna had made a lot of tea, that year, though usually it involved several kettles and several dozen cups and mugs of various sizes.

When you didn’t think about why they were there, some of those memories were good ones.

The doorbell rang as Neville pulled a tin of ginger newts from a cupboard, spilling a box of Every Flavored Beans in the process. He cursed, apologized, and nearly slipped and fell in his hurry to get out of the kitchen to answer it. Luna’s laughter followed him down the hallway.

It was Ginny at the door. “Oh, hi,” Neville said, blinking at her. She looked--well, not terrible , but tired, with circles under her eyes and her jaw set in a way that told Neville she’d probably just had a great row with someone. “Luna and I were just going to have tea,” he said, stepping aside to let her in. “And ginger newts.”

“And Every Flavored Beans,” Luna said, peering out of the kitchen. “I’ve got them tidied up, Neville, don’t worry. Hi, Ginny. Did you have a fight with Harry?”

Neville winced--he forgot, sometimes, that Luna’s definition of tact was different than everyone else’s--but Ginny just sighed. “He’s decided Snape’s portrait should hang in the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts,” she said.

“What?” Neville said loudly. Luna blinked.

“That’s what I said! But he kept going on about how Snape was working for Dumbledore the whole time, that he was really doing his best to protect us.” Ginny stopped abruptly, and shook her head, completely unraveling the messy braid she’d pulled her hair back into.

For a moment, none of them said anything. Then the kettle started to sing, and Luna led the way back to the kitchen. “Sorry,” Ginny muttered as she slumped into a chair at the table. “If he’d brought it up any other week... ”

“It’s okay.” Neville opened the tin of biscuits and pushed it toward Ginny.

“It’s funny how the day it all ended is the day all the memories seem worse,” Luna remarked as she fixed their tea, having uncovered lemons from somewhere; Neville hadn’t even know they had lemons.

“Memory’s the problem,” Ginny said. “Snape gave Harry a bunch of his, you know. Before he died. It’s how he knew Snape was really still following Dumbledore’s orders and everything. Never mind that Snape hated Harry and treated everyone who wasn’t a Slytherin like rubbish, and he didn’t do anything to stop the Carrows--” She stopped herself again, and rubbed her hands over her face. “Sorry. I really don’t want to talk about it. Or Harry. At all. Luna, how was Finland?”

“It was lovely,” Luna said, brightening at the change in subject, and told Ginny all about Sam the bowtruckle. Ginny then wanted to see him for herself, so they trooped out to the garden again, where Luna introduced Sam to Ginny; Sam appeared intrigued by Ginny’s bright red hair, climbing down to perch on her shoulder and run his twiggy fingers through it. He stayed there while, at the girls’ urging, Neville showed them the rest of the garden.

The tea was cold by the time they got back inside, having returned Sam to his apple blossoms and what remained of the woodlice. Luna waved her wand and got it steaming again. “Hey Ginny, how did Quidditch try-outs go?” Neville asked, suddenly remembering.

“Oh, really well! Gwenog Jones hinted that I’d be getting an owl from the Holyhead Harpies, but I don’t know when. I haven’t told anyone else,” she added. “It’ll get back to my mum and then if I don’t she’ll probably send a Howler or something.” Ginny shuddered. “And then I’ll never set foot on a Quidditch pitch. So.”

“I don’t think you have to worry,” Neville said. “You’re a great Chaser.”

“Thanks.” Ginny grinned, sudden and impish. “It’ll be almost as exciting as your new job. How dangerous are these dangerous plants?”

“I don’t think he’s got anything we didn’t cover in Herbology,” Neville said, wrinkling his nose as he tried to remember. “Or that I haven’t read about, anyway.” That was the nice thing about Herbology--if you knew the theory, it was pretty straightforward, at least most of the time, if you didn’t panic. And plants had always been the one thing that didn’t make Neville panic--at least, not much. “It’ll be better than working for the Ministry, anyway. Not nearly as much paperwork.”

“And no one objects if you come to work smelling like dragon dung,” Ginny said. “Mum wants to know where you get yours, by the way. She says it’s better quality or something, but I don’t see what the difference is, it’s all just dragon sh--”

A loud crack! had all three of them whirling around, wands out. Sam protested squeakily, clinging to Ginny’s hair to avoid flying off her shoulder. The sound had come from down the street, however, and after a minute Neville heard the doorbell ring inside. He stuffed his wand away. “Who is it now?” he wondered aloud.

Ginny and Luna remained behind to return Sam to the apple tree, so he made his way alone down the hall to answer the door. “Oh, hello, Hermione?”

Hermione smiled at him. “Hi, Neville. Is Ginny here?”

“Er, yeah, but…”

“She and Harry had a row earlier, but an owl came for her at the Burrow and she’s going to want to see the letter straight away.” She didn’t say how she knew Ginny had come to visit Neville, and Neville decided not to ask.

Ginny and Luna came up behind Neville, and all of them clustered around, trying to read over Ginny’s shoulder as she opened the envelope, which had been sealed with the Holyhead Harpies’ logo. The last remnants of tension left Ginny as she scanned the letter, and when she finished she nearly broke Neville’s nose jumping up and down in ecstatic excitement. “I’m a Harpy!” she shrieked, and spun around to hug Neville and Luna and Hermione all at once. “I got on the team! I’m supposed to go to Holyhead next week to be fitted for my team robes. Oh, wait until I tell Ron--Hermione, is he at the Burrow?”

“He’s in London with George,” Hermione said. “I’ll fetch them back--you three go ahead, we can have a celebration--”

“Mum’s probably already got it all ready,” Ginny said, and then asked, their earlier row apparently forgotten, “Is Harry still there?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good.” Ginny clutched the parchment to her chest, eyes alight. Neville could already imagine her in her Quidditch robes--they would look striking on her, the dark green against her bright red hair.

Luna seemed to be thinking the same thing. “You’ll look much better in Harpy green than Gryffindor red,” she said, as she pulled out her wand. “I’m going to let Daddy know I won’t be home for dinner.”

“See you at the Burrow, then,” Ginny said.

“I should leave a note for Gran,” Neville said as Luna wandered off to find a good spot to Apparate. Hermione had already vanished. “And lock up the greenhouse.”

“I’ll help.” Ginny stuffed the letter into a pocket and followed Neville back out to the garden. Tidying up went quickly with just the two of them, and then they both Apparated to the Burrow, arriving to find a banner already up in Holyhead green and gold, and the whole Weasley clan, as well as Harry, Hermione, and Luna, there to congratulate Ginny, and, in George’s case, to speculate on how badly all the other teams in the league would suffer once she started flying the pitch.

It was as crazy an evening as Neville had ever spent at the Burrow, and just as pleasant. No one mentioned Hogwarts or Headmasters’ portraits or the Ministry. When it got dark enough, George set off fireworks that shrieked and laughed and danced across the sky in a shower of bright-colored sparks.

Neville lay in the grass, feeling it prick at his arms through his shirt. He thought about the mandrakes he’d just replanted, and how happy they’d been with all the room to grow in their new pots, and all the little things he had to do in the garden the next day, and his new job starting next week. Soon Ginny would be flying with the Harpies in Wales, and Luna would be flitting off somewhere else soon to look for Snorkacks and things. She’d promised to take a camera this time--to send home pictures of strange creatures, of course, but also of mountains castles and forests.

“Here, Neville.” Luna appeared beside him, bearing slices of pie and glasses of butterbeer. “What are you thinking about?”

“Roots,” Neville said, taking a bite of pie. It was apple.