I got me some Neville Fever! WEEKLY CHALLENGE! ~RESULTS~

[Russia Snow]

Doctors offices have been overwhelmed.

Hospitals can't cope.

Scientists are baffled.

Who knows if it can be cured?

NEVILLE FEVER!

After the release of DH Pt.2, I'm thinking that pretty much everyone who has been to the cinema/movie theatre has been struck down by this mystery illness.

Your challenge this week is to give in to the symptoms of Neville Fever and allow Neville to take over as your muse.

You may write any time/event and include any other characters. The only requirement is that you have Neville as your primary character.

Your drabble must be 500 words or less and you have until 10pm BST on July 30th to complete your drabble.

(Please use a beta! SPAG will be taken into account when judging)

Form for your drabble:

[B]Name:[/B]
[B]House:[/B]
[B]Title:[/B]
[B]Word Count:[/B]
[B]Ratings/Warnings:[/B]
[B]Reason why Neville is so awesome:[/B]
[B]A/N:[/B] 

Madam Carmerta Edit: I would normally scowl at the use of the 'a' word, but Neville is awesome.
Madam Russia Edit: But I love the 'a' word! (And I love annoying you... =P)

Points:

The usual 15 points for first place, 10 for second, and 5 for third (depending on how many entries we get, and the quality of said drabbles)

There will also be 5 points for participation (providing you follow the rules. If you write a 200 word drabble about Draco, then no.)

(Thanks for putting the points in! I knew I forgot something >.>)

~The Barmaids xxxxx

[welshdevondragon]

Name: Alex/ welshdevondragon
House: Gryffindor
Title: Old Friends
Word*Count: 471
Ratings/Warnings: None/ 1st-2nd years
Reason*why*Neville*is*so*awesome: Because he starts as the school idiot and becomes the school hero. And because he is responsible for the image of Snape wearing that monstrous hat.
A/N:* I seem to have a thing about people needing someone else to poke them in the back in order to propose...

Thanks to Sarah/ TheCursedQuill for beta-ing.

I’d been standing outside the jewellery shop for twenty minutes, unsure whether to go in or not. I nearly jumped when I felt someone’s hand on my arm.

“Hello Neville.” Luna smiled at me.

“Luna,” I said, surprised. We hadn’t seen that much of each other since we split up a few years before. I wasn’t sure why. After all it hadn’t been bitter or violent. Actually it hadn’t really been anything. We’d just trailed off without really knowing why or what had went wrong and for months known it was over but been unwilling to accept that.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Are you buying someone a present?”

“Yeah, Hannah. We’re––”

“I know,” Luna said, breezily. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

We continued a fairly awkward and cool discussion, both of us rather confused over why we were behaving like this. We had been very good friends and that shouldn’t change because we’d, briefly, been in love and now weren’t. Somehow it had.

After an even more awkward goodbye, where she tried to hug me and I thought she was about to kiss me so stepped back, she walked down Diagon Alley and I was left standing outside the jewellery shop.

I was about to walk away, deciding not to bother, when Luna suddenly grabbed my hand and dragged me in.

“What––”

“Neville,” she said, smiling slightly with exasperation, before wearily saying, “You’ve been staring at the engagement rings.”

“Yeah?” I frowned nervously. Was Luna about to suggest that I should be buying one for her? She had no right to, and it would be unlike her but what else could she mean?

She smiled warmly and all awkwardness had gone. “Let’s be friends Neville,” she said simply. “You have Hannah and I think you want to propose. Will Hannah want a diamond ring?”

“Umm...” I wasn’t sure how Hannah would feel about my ex helping me pick out a ring. Then I realised Luna wasn’t an ex at all. Well, she was, but more importantly she was a friend.

I smiled. “She’s more unconventional than people think.”

“Amethysts are pretty.” I followed Luna’s gaze to a ring in the counter. The ring was silver with three amethyst stones, one cut, one smooth and the other rough and impure. It was rather beautiful and I knew Hannah would love it. Whether she loved me enough to marry me, I wasn’t sure.

“I’m––what if she says no?” I managed to say.

“You should ask her if you want to.”

Anyone else would point out how stupid that was. Me, a Battle of Hogwarts hero, scared of proposing. But Luna didn’t.

“I should.”

Luna nodded and suddenly I felt the courage I needed.

“Thanks,” I said. “Old friend.”

We smiled and embraced. Three months later, Luna was at my wedding.

[crazy717]

Name: Abi/ Crazy717
House: Gryffindor
Title: Mmeories
Word*Count: 262
Ratings/Warnings: None/ 1st-2nd years
Reason*why*Neville*is*so*awesome: Because he gave us the amazing image of Snape in his Grans clothing
A/N:* I know its rubbish but it is also extremly rused. Thank you Alex for Beta-ing!


Here I am back at Hogwarts just three years after the legendary battle. The place I called home for seven years, the place where I made and lost friends, the place that I proved myself.


Then Harry told me he needed a job doing, something he might not have time to do, at the time I didn’t know why and what he was planning to do.


When Hagrid brought Harry in, laying dead in his arms I was overwhelmed with emotion but determination pushed all those aside. When Voldemort tried to tell us Harry had been killed running away, trying to save his own neck, I had to do something. My opportunity came when I pulled the sword out of the hat which meant I was a true Gryffindor. I killed the snake. After that everything went in slow motion: Voldemort tryed to kill me but Harry cast a shield between us. After that I watched in nervous anticipation as Harry defeated Voldemort once and for all.


People told me I was a hero and all because Harry taught me to have the courage to stand up for what I believe in. Gran was so proud if me and she said my parents would be to. It’s such a different future than I thought I would have. I was always the class idiot, I couldn’t even disarm anyone until 5th year. Yet here I am today happily engaged and being called in for a job interview to become the teacher of the one subject I love.


I Neville Longbottom, am truly happy.

[TheCursedQuill]

Name: TheCursedQuill
House: Gr-Gr-Gryffindor
Title: Making Mum Proud
Word Count: 499!
Ratings/Warnings: 1st-2nd/nada
Reason why Neville is so awesome: Because we got to see him grow from an awkward, untalented boy into the determined and courageous hero that he is <3
A/N: I imagine Neville would use his mum has an outlet for everything.. like a diary only she's a living person and not a book. I'm sure he'd do the same with his dad.. but Frank is unfortunately MIA at the moment.. most likely sleeping. A huge thanks to Alex for being my beta on this. Without her, I would still be over 500.

Neville held his mum’s hand from beside her hospital bed. She stared at him with little interest, her eyes unfocused and a smile across her face.

“I can’t begin to describe to you what happened at Hogwarts,” he began, or rather tried to as he was lost for words. “The… noise of it all. Yet the complete silence. I’m sure you know what I mean.” He looked at his mother, trying to imagine her duelling with another wizard. In his mind, she was brilliant and he knew he wasn’t being biased; people always spoke highly of the Longbottoms.

“I had always wondered why I couldn’t be more like you and Dad. Gran thought I had nothing of you two in me… she says differently now, of course. Ever since that night at the Ministry. You remember me telling you, right? When we went into the Department of Mysteries?”

Her eyes wondered as a nurse passed by and Neville smiled knowingly, disappointed. Gran always told him he shouldn’t waste time telling her stories, that she would never fully understand him. But it felt wrong to not tell her.

“Anyways, back to the battle of Hogwarts. I fought a lot that night, and for the first time ever, I truly felt like I wasn’t a letdown. Like I was the grandson Gran hoped I would be. It felt good.” He chuckled. “If it wasn’t for Harry though, I‘d never have been able to defend myself. But––” He stopped, not wanting to sound stupid in front of his mum. She looked straight into his eyes, giving him courage. “But I also know that most of what I did came from me. I always had it in me. I just never trusted myself.”

His mum smiled and nodded her head, more than she should, as she picked up the Daily Prophet sitting beside her bed. She pointed to a picture on an inside page and then pointed to her only son. She recognised him as the boy in the paper.

Neville’s face broke into a smile and his heart warmed just knowing that she knew his face.

“Yeah, that’s me. They wrote an article about how I helped defeat Voldemort. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I pulled the Sword of Gryffindor out of the Sorting Hat! I can’t even put into words how I felt. They called me a hero.” His face turned a light shade of red. “The real hero was Harry that night –“

He broke off as his mum suddenly reached into her pocket, taking out a Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum wrapper. She held it out, smiling warmly. He opened his hand so she could give it to him, closing his fingers around it as tears started to brim over his eyelids. She patted the top of his head and he knew in his heart that this meant she was proud of him. She thought he was a hero. And that was all that mattered to Neville.

[ron lover]

Name: ron lover
House: Gryffindor
Title: Neville Longbottom
Word Count: 499!
Ratings/Warnings: 1-2, none
Reason why Neville is so awesome: Because he is brave in his whole special way throughout most of the books, and then BAM! he kills the snake with a sword.
A/N: The word 'Professor' was in front of all of the names, but I had to cut them out to get the right word count. D:


i.
He was known as the loser. The boy who lost his frog on the train. The boy who could never remember anything. The boy who everyone believed was misplaced by the Hat. He was the one Snape made fun of. The one even his own House made fun of.

He was the one who was constantly being compared to his parents.

Neville was the one brave enough to stand up to his friends.

ii.

He was a loser. He still couldn’t fly; he could barely complete a potion. He was still the pudgy boy the Slytherin’s picked on and the one Snape ridiculed.

He had no luck in his classes. He learned nothing in Defense with Lockhart as teacher, and Transfiguration and Charms were as impossible as ever. He fainted in Herbology.

Neville still wasn’t as great as his parents.

iii.

Neville was not surprised that his boggart took the form of Snape. Snape criticized him the most. He told him he was an idiot, that he was good for nothing. He had intimidated him. It was no wonder that he feared Snape.

Lupin thought he was brave. He helped show him that there is nothing to fear about Snape; he was just a mean old man with a hatred of Gryffindors.

For the first time, Neville did well in a class other than Herbology.

iv.

Neville knew the Unforgivable Curses. He knew the effects, but he had never seen them performed before.

He watched as a spider was tortured, just as his parents were years ago. He saw the spider writhe in excruciating pain: the pain that drove his parents to insanity.

His Gran mentioned more and more times that she wished Harry Potter was her grandson.

Neville had a date to the Yule Ball before Harry.

v.

Neville did not believe that Umbridge was correct. They did need to know defensive spells. Any fool could’ve seen that You-Know-Who was back.

Without a question he joined Dumbledore’s Army. It took him the longest to learn the spells Harry was teaching, but he did.

He went to the Ministry with Harry. When they were attacked by Death Eaters, he was the only one still standing with Harry.

Neville’s Gran had never been more proud of him.

vi.

Neville was in the Slug Club. He listened on while his secret was being revealed. He listened while Slughorn talked about his parents’ torturing in front of people that despised him.

Neville fought against Death Eaters inside the castle.

vii.

When Hogwarts was taken by the Death Eaters, Neville fought. He stood up for Dumbledore, for Harry, for what was right when few else did.

He was the people’s leader. His friends followed him, like they did for Harry. He got cuts, gashes and bruises – he was tortured for standing up for himself and everyone he tried protecting. He was Hogwarts’ new fearless leader.

He spoke up to Voldemort.

He killed a part of Voldemort’s soul.

Neville was a hero.

[TM_WandStick]

Name: TM_WandStick
House: Gryffindor
Title: Mad Fanfiction Writers
Word Count: 498
Ratings/Warnings: 1st/2nd Years - mention of sex
Reason why Neville is so awesome: Because he ended up being cool and confident. Who knew?
A/N: Yeah, this kind of sucks. I honestly can't see Neville/Luna ever happening, but I didn't really argue my case very well. *shrugs*


“Oooh, look at this one,” Luna said, holding up a roll of parchment.

“Is it another Snape and Hermione one?” I asked warily. “These fanfiction writers are absolutely mad.”

“No, no,” Luna said airily, waving her hand as if the idea of Snape being with Hermione caused her no more concern than a particularly bad flobberworm bite. “This one is about us.”

“Oh,” I replied, turning back to the other roles of parchment. I didn’t really know how to feel about people writing stuff about me. I supposed it was flattering, but it felt weird to read about yourself. “You mean DA stuff?” I asked casually, trying to sound like it wasn’t us we were talking about, but two other, distant, nebulous people.

Luna skimmed the parchment, her bulbous eyes growing ever larger as they slid across the words.

“What?” I asked, a tad impatiently. “What is it, Luna?” She cocked her head to the side and looked at me for a moment.

“We’re together,” she said simply. I raised my eyebrows.

“What do you mean, together?” I asked confusedly.

“I mean,” she started, tapping her finger to her chin. “That we are a couple. Like, we have sex right here.” She pointed to a specific line on the parchment, but I had already turned away, mortified.

“Oh,” I said. What else was I supposed to say? My cheeks burned red with embarrassment and I crossed the room, grabbing another roll of parchment in an attempt to hide my reaction from her. Me and Luna? Luna and me? Who could ever think such a thing? We were friends, yes, good friends, but….

I snuck a quick glance back at Luna and she was still reading the same parchment, looking for the entire world like it was nothing more than a particularly interesting textbook passage. That was the thing about Luna. She didn’t realize when something was awkward.

Don’t get me wrong, Luna is great, but I had never, ever thought about her that way. We’re just… different, really. Before the war made me grow up, the only thing I had wanted was to fit in. And she… she just didn’t think about things like that. In school we were both outcasts to a certain extent, but that didn’t mean we would automatically get together. We had the DA, of course, and I got used to Luna’s habits after a while, but that doesn’t mean I ever liked her. Besides, I have Hannah now.

Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed that Luna was approaching me until she stood right next to my shoulder.

“It’s just a story,” she said.

I lowered my gaze slowly and met Luna’s eye. She smiled at me and raised the parchment up.

“It never really happened, of course,” she continued when I didn’t say anything. “I expect people just like to pair up their favourite characters.”

I snorted. Good old Luna. She nodded, seeming satisfied.

“Mad fanfiction writers,” I said with a grin.

[lttlebird]

Name: littlebird/lttlebird
House: Gryffindor
Title: What the Room Gave Me
Word Count: 497
Ratings/Warnings: None
Reason why Neville is so awesome: He takes his knocks and keeps on going. He's a man who will finish the job, or die trying. Yeah, Neville!

*****
Gran called it the Baby Blues, the reason why Mum’s face looks that way in all our pictures. It was the reason for the un-nameable expression- the sad half-grin, the smile sliding in the wrong direction. Gran said it was a perfectly normal thing, and that lots of new mother’s go through it. It had nothing to do with me, that sadness. Not really.

So, I always looked past it and just tried to see my mother. I tried to memorize the way her face looked in that short half-second before her eyes left mine, before the corners of her mouth dropped as she turned away from baby me to look at who ever was behind the camera.

Then, the day I turned twelve, after Gran and I got home from my birthday visit to St. Mungo’s, I tucked the album under my robes at the bottom of my school trunk. A person can’t always be reaching back, always clinging to something they lost a long time ago. It’s no good. Especially when it’s something they can’t even remember ever having in the first place.

So, that first night, when I pulled back the blanket from the bunk and there it was, I tried to remember exactly what I had asked for to make the Room give me that album. My exact words had been, “I need my own place for the night”, then the wall dissolved and I was inside; just me, a lamp, a bunk, and that one book of old photos.

I remembered having to wrestle with the weight of it as a kid, but now it was lighter- easily picked up with just one hand. I flipped it open to the first page-the typical first photo of a new family- still smudged with my small, oily fingerprints. Dad stood up straight and firm and tall. He put his hand on Mum’s shoulder and I could see the shape of my own knuckles, my own square nails. Mum looked up from where she sat, squeezing the fat-faced bundle in her arms, leaning into Dad, and, as always, her face rotated forward.

And I didn’t just see the sadness anymore. I saw a flash of that exact same look of all the students when we catch an eyeful of Professor McGonagall standing in the doorway of the classroom with Madame Pomfrey behind her. It’s pretty specific, that fear of losing, that fear of being lost. I didn’t really know its name when I was twelve, and I certainly wouldn’t have recognized its face. But it’s five years later. And, well, now we’re old acquaintances.

I looked up from the album and saw the small mirror on the wall in front of me. The hazy glass with the peeling back hadn’t been there before, and I peered at my own reflection.

My Mum kept going until she no longer could, and so will I. It’s the least I can do. You see, I have her face.

[Russia Snow]

Results!

First Place: ronlover (15 points)
Second Place: TheCursedQuill (10 points)
Third Place: lttlebird (5 points)

Participation Points: 30

Overall Points:

Gryffindor: 60
Hufflepuff: 0
Ravenclaw: 0
Slytherin: 0

Good work, Gryffies!

~Madam Russia xxxxx