Neville Longbottom awoke slowly from a deep slumber on a bright summer morning. Reluctantly, he roused himself from his bed and slowly got dressed. Reaching under his bed and pulling out a left shoe, he put it on then spent the next five minutes looking for the right one of the pair. It was only after searching his entire room and going through his Hogwarts trunk that he remembered that he had lost that particular other shoe at the end of last school term. Well, not lost exactly, more given away, and it meant far more to its recipient now than it ever did to Neville. He wondered where Dobby was now.
He got out his other (now only remaining) pair of shoes and put them on, throwing the odd shoe into a corner. He’d had a devil of a time explaining to Gran, when he’d arrived back in Huddlesby that summer, how he’d managed to lose a shoe at Hogwarts. It was particularly tough on account of the fact he couldn’t tell her the truth. Neville had got up to some pretty remarkable, not to say terrifying, things in his two years at Hogwarts, things that he knew would probably frighten Gran into stopping him from ever going back to the school again. Neville couldn’t allow that to happen.
He hated lying to Gran, and he was always petrified that she would find him out. Whilst Neville didn’t exactly live in fear of her, he knew how strict she was about the slightest step out of line. Every minute of Neville’s time at home during the holidays was strictly monitored, and he was never allowed to go further than the front garden. Neville felt it was only with reluctance that she released him to Hogwarts for nine months of the year, and he didn’t want to give her any excuse to change her mind.
Neville of course could not keep from Gran everything that had happened in the past year. It was common knowledge in the wizarding world that Hogwarts had been subjected to a series of attacks on students over the year, which had threatened to close the school. It was also known that the attacks had been ended and the creature responsible destroyed. Most of the credit had been given to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, who had returned to Hogwarts at the key moment. Very few knew the actual truth.
Very few knew that the creature was in fact a basilisk, that that had been discovered by Neville’s friend Hermione. That the basilisk had been controlled by a memory of the sixteen-year-old Lord Voldemort, contained in a diary. And that Neville had been one of three students who had entered the basilisk’s lair and killed it, rescuing their friend Ron and destroying the diary.
With all that to hide from Gran, the fact that he had indirectly given his shoe away to a house-elf rather paled into comparison as a secret, but telling that would only lead to further more difficult questions, so he had kept quiet. He trusted that his usual forgetfulness would provide sufficient excuse, and it seemed to have done so.
He left his room and trudged down the stairs to the kitchen. Gran was sitting in her armchair in the living room and called out as he passed the door. “Oh, you’re up at last. Your breakfast’s on the stove. Don’t blame me if it’s burnt.” She returned to reading her book. Neville went on into the kitchen and helped himself to the porridge. In fact it was fine, Gran never let it burn, in spite of her regular complaints about Neville’s late rising.
Neville sat at the kitchen table and ate his breakfast quietly. His eyes turned to the row of birthday cards on the window sill, from his thirteenth birthday a little under a week ago. Aside for the one from Gran, there was one from Hermione, and another signed by both Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, who Neville remembered was staying with Harry over the summer. The last one made him feel guilty about not getting Harry a card. He knew Harry’s birthday was about the same time as his, though he wasn’t sure exactly what day it was.
He pondered the fact that he was now a teenager. He wasn’t really sure what that meant. He didn’t really feel any different, and he certainly didn’t look any different, he was still the chubby short-for-his-age kid he’d been a year ago. Teenagers in his mind were a lot older and definitely a lot taller than he was, and spent their time worrying about quite different things. He couldn’t see himself as one of them.
There was a tap on the window: it was an owl delivering the morning post. Neville opened the window and the owl hopped in. A couple of letters and a copy of the Daily Prophet were attached to its leg. Neville freed them carefully. “Gran, where did you put the money for the owl?” he called towards the living room.
“On the counter where I always leave it, Neville,” came the weary reply. Neville located the change and dropped it into the owl’s pouch. The owl flew off as soon as he had done so. Leaving the newspaper on the kitchen table, Neville carried the letters in to Gran. One appeared to be from Great Uncle Algie, he and Great Aunt Enid had gone on holiday to Ireland, Neville knew. The other one, to his delight, was his Hogwarts letter.
Gran put Algie’s letter to one side and opened the Hogwarts letter. She muttered disapprovingly at the long list of books, undoubtedly thinking of the price. “Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles?” she enquired. “You’re taking Muggle Studies?”
“Yeah,” replied Neville. “It seemed, well, a good thing to know about.”
“Hmm. I’d have preferred you to have taken something more practical. Don’t go thinking you can mess about in it, though. Same goes for Divination.”
“Yes, Gran.”
Gran turned over the letter to reveal a small slip underneath. “What’s this? Oh, it’s your Hogsmeade permission slip.” She leaned over and picked up her quill off the coffee table. “Now, you’re not going to embarrass either of us while you’re there, right Neville?” Neville nodded mutely. “Stick to the centre of the village, don’t go in any of the more disreputable places and don’t go off on your own, all right?” She handed over the signed slip. “Don’t go losing that, put it somewhere safe.”
Neville pocketed the slip whilst Gran ripped open Algie’s letter. Leaving her to read it, he returned to the kitchen to finish his breakfast. He polished off the last of his porridge, idly unfolding the Daily Prophet to glance at the front page. A large picture of a morose, sombre faced young wizard filled much of the front page. The headline above the picture read AZKABAN BREAKOUT: WEREWOLF ESCAPES. Neville set to reading the article.
Dangerous werewolf Remus Lupin has escaped from Azkaban prison, the Ministry of Magic announced yesterday evening. Lupin, 33, shown here at the time of his arrest twelve years ago, apparently made his escape three days ago. Ministry officials remain baffled as to how Lupin eluded the Azkaban guards; indeed this marks the first successful escape from the prison, raising questions about security at the island fortress.
Lupin was one of the most notorious of Azkaban’s inmates, a devoted follower of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named who was sentenced to life imprisonment for mass murder shortly after his downfall. It was widely suspected that he was responsible for a great many more crimes that were never proven. The scourge of the werewolf has long blighted the wizarding community, and You-Know-Who was certainly not above using these vicious creatures for his own ends. Though strong measures have been put in place in recent times to protect our children from this menace, this event only serves to remind us that more needs to be done.
The Ministry has stated that Lupin should be considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached under any circumstances. Any sightings should be reported to the Ministry at once. The public are urged to be on their guard, particularly around times of the full moon. Whilst Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge has publicly insisted Lupin will be swiftly recaptured, sources close to Auror head Rufus Scrimgeour have told us he expects the manhunt to be a long and difficult one.
Neville stopped reading at that moment and flipped the newspaper over to check on the Quidditch scores. He didn’t want to read any more, it would only depress him. The subject of the war which had claimed his parents’ lives was not one he liked to dwell on, from what little he had learned it seemed only a time of misery and suffering, not a time to be remembered. It was painful enough having to deal with the horrors in his own past, let alone those of people he had no connection to.
The back page revealed that the Appleby Arrows had narrowly lost the day before to the Harpies, which only depressed Neville further. Leafing through the inside pages, he discovered a large number of articles were devoted to the subject of werewolves, with commentators taking a range of strident viewpoints on the subject. He didn’t read any of them. He didn’t really know anything about werewolves, they hadn’t covered them in Defence Against the Dark Arts yet.
Gran came into the kitchen, bearing Algie’s letter. “Clear away your breakfast things, Neville,” she chided. Neville did as he was told. “Algie and Enid send their love. They’ve been in Cork, apparently. That the Prophet?” She put down the letter and took up the newspaper, refolding it to reveal the front page. She took one glance at the picture and the headline and her face went white as a sheet. She dropped the newspaper as if it were tainted and steadied herself on a chair.
“Gran, are you all right? What is it?” asked Neville. He’d never seen Gran react in such a way. She looked genuinely frightened, really scared of something. Now she was staring at Neville, a look of fear and confusion on her face that Neville had never seen before. After a few seconds, though, she regained her normal composure.
“I’m fine,” she said firmly. “Neville, I want you to go to your room right now.”
“But Gran…”
“Now, Neville. I mean it. Don’t argue with me.” Reluctantly Neville trudged away up the stairs and back to his room. Below he could now hear Gran frantically rushing about doing something that Neville couldn’t make out. He sat on his bed shaking his head. He couldn’t understand what had just happened. What was it about that report that had affected Gran so much? She’d never mentioned a particular fear or dislike of werewolves before.
He got out some homework and tried to make a start on it, but he was distracted by the sound of Gran from below and his thought on the newspaper report. Maybe it wasn’t werewolves in general that concerned Gran, he thought. Maybe it was this particular one. But if that was the case, what did Gran know about him? Who was Remus Lupin?
Neville Longbottom and the Prisoner of Azkaban by Sonorus
Chapter Notes: In which Neville reads news of a convict’s escape from Azkaban prison.