Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

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Hullo, this is Neville Longbottom, I think I've done this right.
Erm, you can leave me a voiceletter. If you'd like.

Comments

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[Every time a Death Eater posts to the Network, he gets a private message from a well-meaning stranger. When the reply video shows up, Neville looks like he's found his head again after the past couple hours. He's beyond embarrassed over his own public explosion in response, though.]

I have had him as a professor for the last seven years, I've noticed.

[It's an attempt at a joke! Bit of a pathetic attempt, mind. The weak little smile that accompanied it falls away after about a second and a half, sorry.]

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[tonsofpun]

Yeah.

[Ellie tries to smile too. He's tough, she'll give him that. There's no pity in her expression, or eyes, just a certain frustration. About everything.]

Still. Kind of a shitty welcome wagon to the city.

... I might've yelled at him. A... lot.

[More than a lot. She makes some kind of awkward hand gesture, as if there's more she wants to say about it, but it's not important.]

I'm Ellie. Neville, right?

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[That seems to jostle Neville out of his funk better than anything else had, and he blinks a bit owlishly at her.]

You yelled at him?

[You can just yell at him? Granted, that's what Neville has been doing since arriving here, but Neville also has a bone to pick and a very real problem with recklessness.]

I- [Wait, hang on.] Ellie? Do you know Harry?

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[tonsofpun]

Oh yeah. And I called him a giant fucking tool. And an asshole. And some other stuff I don't remember.

[Ellie gives him a wan little smile, hoping she looks a least a little bit reassuring. She also doesn't look too concerned about it. What's another month's detention? She's already got enough racked up.]

Yep. Harry and Hermione and Draco mostly. And Teach. ... Snape, I mean.

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[Neville has even less an idea of what to do with the fact that she's familiar enough with Snape to have given him a cute nickname than he knows what to do with the fact that she cussed him out and called him names right to his face.

He wars between being wary and being awestruck for a few, long seconds before he just shakes his head once to clear it and decides he'd rather figure her out by how she acts than the people she knows, anyway.]

Sorry, right-- he said you had Growth too. I think he wanted to introduce us, actually...

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[tonsofpun]

[Don't worry, Neville. The cute nickname was originally just another way to piss him off. Her eyes blink wide when she realizes Harry must have talked about her. She has a moment to almost hope that he doesn't know about the whole Voldemort thing, but-

She abandons that train of thought to positively light up when he mentions his power.]

You're another Sigyn? And a Growth user? Oh man, welcome to the club!

It's weird, there's a ton of people in our House, but like twice as many people got the Healing end of the schtick.

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Cheers. [He smiles back at her, a little more convincing this time, and it doesn't flop off his face immediately so much as fade away gradually as he shrugs a shoulder in response.] Healing would be nice, I think, to be able to help people like that. But, well-- I've always quite liked Herbology: it's my best subject. I'm glad I've got Growth.

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[tonsofpun]

Man, at least it worked out like that for one of us. I keep thinking mine's just a bad joke.

[Ellie flashes a brief smile.]

So you know all about plants? Even the magical ones? Hell, I'm still learning some of the basic herbal stuff.

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Well-- [Harry did say she was one of the people he should go to, and he does want more than anything to become useful to the Order in Asgard...] If you teach me how to use the ability, I could teach you about the plants.

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[tonsofpun]

[It makes her smile, and it doesn't slip off right away this time.]

That'd be cool of you. And sure, I'll definitely help.

... I should- probably mention. Snape teaches the Herbology here. I think there's somebody else that does too, but I take Potions during that time block, so I don't go to that class.

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He what?

[Ellie might have told him that summer was cancelled, that weekends were turned into two more weekdays, that joy itself was abolished. Herbology is his happy place, damnit.]

Why doesn't he just teach Potions?

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[tonsofpun]

... hell if I know. I mean, I know he's the Potions Master back home and all that junk, but-

[... but she wanted to know about plants. For her powers. And for other reasons. And Snape was her best bet. And even as she talks, she realizes just how deep this must go. Neville's looking at her like Christmas is ruined.]

I don't get it. Why is he such a shit to you? I mean, he's a shit to almost everyone, but it's like a whole new level with you.

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Was. He hasn't been Potions Master in two years.

[Because first he ruined DADA, and then he ruined Hogwarts.]

... I don't know. Because I was bad at Potions, I suppose.

[Neville is pretty sure "he's a shit" doesn't even come close to covering it, but he never really stopped to think about why things had been that way either. Mostly because he thought he deserved the way Snape treated him for the majority of his time at school.]

I mean, on top of not being in Slytherin.

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[tonsofpun]

[Part of Ellie wants to tell him that he can be a decent guy too -- that he's saved her life a few times over, in fact -- but after watching the cruel things Snape said to him, she can't bring herself to defend him.]

... man.

You're sure? He's just like that to everybody?

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[Everything public Snape had said was pretty average, and once Neville separates that mentally from the rest of it... The comments on uselessness, ignorance and idiocy were all more-or-less standard fare for a Potions lesson or accidental encounter in the hallway. It's not like he never said anything horribly disrespectful about Harry's dead father in front of the class, either, so even that isn't unheard of. (Though Neville will admit that hearing about his own parents - having their fate trotted out, verbally, like it was nothing - hit him harder than anything else Snape had ever said, and he'd made a terrible embarrassment of himself as a result.)

He clears his throat, awkwardly.]

People that aren't in Slytherin, yeah. That was his House, so he let them do what they want. Everyone else, though... [Neville trails off and shrugs.]

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[tonsofpun]

[And here Harry's told her, more than once, that she'd have been in Gryffindor. What the hell does that say?]

That fucking sucks, Neville.

All of this fucking sucks.

[And she takes a deep breath.]

... man. At least you missed Voldemort being here.

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[Neville actually outright splutters over that, letting the rest of her reply fall to the wayside.]

I-- what? When? He's supposed to be- [Dead. Like half the people from his world that are here. Right.] ... What happened?

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[tonsofpun]

Oh. Crap. Nobody told you?

[There's a lot of shit nobody's told him, apparently, but she awkwardly tries to explain.]

He showed up, and I guess he was younger than Harry and the others remembered. Maybe your age, but...

[Ellie trails off. Everybody tends to flip their shit when she tells them this.]

Anyway. I didn't know who he was. And I ran into him in the middle of a battle. He was throwing curses everywhere, and he saw me and decided to show me what a Crucio felt like.

[Several rounds of it. To this day, Ellie is foggy on how many it was.]

... so I unloaded a clip of bullets into his face until he died.

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[Neville goes quite quiet over that. It's a lot to process, but it is made slightly easier over the myriad of strange, tangled timelines he's already encountered here.

Like it's difficult picturing Dumbledore as anything but an old man, he can scarcely imagine Voldemort as ever having been his age, as ever having been anything but a snake-faced monster.

But regardless of age, he knows those tactics well. Neville, more than anyone else here, had been terrified of the Cruciatus Curse. He knew what it could do to a person, irreversibly, no matter how strong or solid or brave. He was also, he imagined, far more accustomed to it as a part of every day life than anyone else here either. He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that coming out of it on the other side with your brain in-tact doesn't even remotely mean you haven't been changed by it.

When he talks again, there's no pity in his voice, just a sort of worn-out and bedraggled familiarity. Like he's talked to a hundred kids who have been shown the same thing.]

I'm sorry. No one should have to know what that curse feels like.

[And he has no idea what a clip or bullets are, but the last part he understands well enough. He nods, once, a bit grim and a bit satisfied.]

Good on you. I hope it hurt an awful lot.

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[tonsofpun]

You too, huh?

[Nobody could have a reaction like that and not know. Ellie's heart feels heavy, thinking about what Snape said about his parents. Shit she's sure he never wanted anybody to know.]

He didn't exactly leave me alone after that. Or- the people I cared about either. That's when Harry and Hermione started helping me. ... and Draco, and Snape.

[She has to give credit where it's due. Somehow.]

He killed Tess. He's the reason Joel doesn't have one of his arms. So I'm- I'm with you guys. Fuck that guy. And everyone who's helping him.

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[With a sudden flatness to his tone that belies the bitterness:]

Yeah. It was how they liked to do detentions, with that curse.

[It's not that he blames her for it, but he finds that it stings with a surprising bit of power, her credit given and the idea that Snape cared enough about her - this strange girl from a different world entirely, whom Harry had sworn up and down would have been a Gryffindor - to help her against Voldemort. To help her, when he never had done for the Hogwarts students: some younger than her, some older, some more capable of defending themselves and some far less.

But he doesn't blame her, because he knows what that's like, to have one's life touched by Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Because nobody asks for that.]

They can be worse, sometimes. His followers.

[He might be a bit biased, about that fact.]

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[tonsofpun]

... fuck. I'm sorry.

[No pity there, just incredible sympathy. She's only had it happen the once, but it was enough for her. And it seems like everyone from that world knows what it's like. For an unforgivable curse, it's plenty popular.]

Barty Crouch sure is enough of a shithead.

-look, I really... if you don't want to answer, don't, okay? But were you really stuck in a school filled with his followers? For a year?

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He's dangerous.

[And he means that, emphatically. He thought he'd gotten braver, facing the Carrows and surviving, but Barty terrifies him. The knowledge of everything he did, of the fact that he spent a year teaching and Neville never even noticed - he brings everything rushing back with every strange text and cloying message.]

Even without Voldemort. Especially without him.

[He pauses: scrutinizes her. Snape has fooled so many people, he thinks. He fooled Dumbledore long enough to kill him. He fooled Harry's mum, and worst of all, he had Harry and Hermione fooled now. Whatever he's done to make them all think that the things he did to the students of Hogwarts were justifiable, Neville just wishes it would all come down around his ears in a horrible way.]

I was stuck in a school with Professor Snape and the two people he hired to torture us and try to turn us into Death Eaters too. Yes.

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[tonsofpun]

[Ellie goes quiet again, realizing with a start that he... doesn't believe. And hell, can she blame him? After what he's been through? After all of that, every day, knowing that he's been subjected to torture just for the sake of a cover?

It sounds more painful than believing the carefully constructed lies. All of Ellie's explanations, her stories of what's happened -- all her proof. Suddenly, none of it matters, and she feels sick to her stomach for ever thinking she could tell him and it would all be better.

Ellie grits her teeth, shakes her head, looks away. She can't even look him in the eyes.]

Okay.

There's no fucking way that I'm going to sit here and tell you to trust Snape. Not after what you've been through. If what happened to me, if what happened to Joel and Tess was even a little bit of the shit you saw, then nothing's ever going to make up for it.

So I'm not- I'm not gonna tell you what to feel.

[She knows that now. She's glad she saw it in time.]

You have every right to hate him, and to feel like this whole thing is crazy, because it is.

But I'll tell you what. I'm all for making sure that nobody else gets hurt, if I can help it. I'm all for making it really, really hard for Crouch to keep pulling his bullshit. So if you'll have me? I'm on your side.

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[There's a long quiet. It's a little sad, really, how grateful he is for that tiny bit of kindness. I'm not going to tell you to trust Snape. It's more than Harry gave him, and he doesn't want to be mad at Harry - he doesn't - but he's seen Harry on the Network telling people that Snape had always been there for him. That all the things Snape did were worth it. He's gotten interrupted by Harry texting him, to stop him telling people the truth about what Snape did.

All he can see are the first years, and the choices he had to make without Harry there, while they were trying to hold out hope for his return: how much torture can an eleven-year-old endure before someone needed to intervene, and who they were worth possibly sacrificing for it? Could he live with himself if he gave up and stopped fighting back, if he let his friends and classmates do it too to spare themselves the pain, and could he even survive the year if he didn't?

Things Snape could have saved them from - saved him from - but didn't.

And Harry wants him to trust Snape.

But not Ellie. Neville manages a nod - at first distractedly, and then with a purpose.]

I. I would like that. And I really do want to learn how to use Growth. When it's- we're needed, I mean, I don't want to be useless. I want to be able to help.