Finding Heather

Year 6 Chapter 4

"Hi, Harry" said Neville cheerily when she had opened the door and stepped inside, "had a good summer? Here let me help you with that."

Heather accepted his help with her trunk, and soon they had it securely in place. "Yeah, pretty good. Spent most of it with Ron and his family. You?"

"Oh yeah" Neville replied, and pulled out his wand proudly, showing it to her. "Gran bought me this after my last one was broken at the Ministry."

"That's great. Hi Luna" Heather said looking over at her. Luna was sitting there, apparently oblivious to the world, reading a copy of her father's magazine, The Quibbler. Heather smiled fondly at the front cover, remembering how it alone had treated her decently last year.

"Hello" Luna replied dreamily, not looking up.

Shaking her head with a smile, Heather turned back to Neville as the train started off. He had grown over the summer, and was almost as tall as Ron. It wasn't just his height that had changed, gone was the roundness of his cheeks and the perpetually nervous eyes. In the place of the boy that Heather had known for five years now sat what she could only say was a confident young man, or at least more confident than she had ever seen Neville before.

"I thought Gran would be really unhappy when she learned about what happened last year, but she wasn't! Says I'm finally living up to my father's legacy." Neville said as their conversation turned to the events of a few months ago.

"You don't need to live up to anything" interjected Luna, looking up from her reading. "You fought Death Eater's and stood beside your friends."

Neville blushed at her words and Heather shot Luna a smile. It never ceased to amaze her how the blonde Ravenclaw could be so bluntly, and sometimes embarrassingly, honest.

Before anyone could say anything else, the door to their compartment opened and a blast of perfume invaded Heather's nostrils. Turning she saw one of the girls who had been giggling standing there, with two friends behind her out in the corridor.

"Hi Harry, I'm Romilda Vane. If you want you can join up in our compartment. You don't need to sit with them" The last word was said as a whisper than no one failed to hear. Neville's face fell at her words.

"These are my friends" said Heather coldly, instantly disliking the girl.

"Oh!" Romilda said with a look of completed surprise and departed quickly.

As the door slammed shut Luna mused, "People expect you to have much cooler friends than us."

"Yeah" said Neville dejectedly.

"Listen, you both are cool. None of them were there when I needed them. They didn't fight by my side. And Neville, Luna's right. You don't need to live up to anyone other than yourself."

"I know, it's just..." he said and trailed off

"I get it, I do. I know what it's like to grow up with someone who can only see flaws, it's not easy. But trust me, you're a fantastic wizard." Heather said nicely, and she saw his shoulders lift at her words.

"That's a very nice thing to say" said Luna, beaming before putting on a pair of Spectrespecs and resuming reading.

Conversation shifted to their O.W.L. grades. Neville had done well in Herbology but was afraid his other scores weren't up to continuing most of his subjects. As he spoke Heather's mind drifted to the prophecy. For reasons beyond her, Voldemort had decided that she posed a greater threat to him than Neville, despite his pure blood ideology. What would life be like, she wondered, if Voldemort had gone after the Longbottoms instead of her parents.