It was a beautiful summer afternoon in the ordinary little village of Huddlesby. Robert Ashcroft was walking up Preston Road, towards the fields at the far end of the village, kicking his football as he went.
Robert was fourteen years old, and currently in the middle of the long summer break between his third and fourth years at the local comprehensive. Huddlesby being a somewhat remote village, “local” in this case meant the outskirts of Blackburn, over half an hour’s bus ride away. Nearly all his friends lived far closer to the school than he did, either in Blackburn or close by, which meant that come the holidays, he almost always found himself alone.
Living in Huddlesby was a frustrating experience for Robert. One the one hand, it was peaceful and relaxed; he could happily walk the streets alone and play in the open fields. But that was it; there was nothing else to do in the village. Usually he got so bored by the end of the summer that he was desperate for school to start again.
Robert’s one greatest passion was football. Every break time at school he would try and gather his friends into a game. He played for the school team, as an aggressive centre-forward, like his hero, Blackburn Rovers’ Alan Shearer. Rovers had won the league last season for the first time in over eighty years, and Robert had been wearing his beloved Shearer number 9 replica shirt virtually every day of the summer. His mother was getting sick and tired of having to wash it so often.
The trouble was, there was virtually no other boy his age in the village, so outside of school he had no one he could play with. He was forced to practise by himself, using a wall or a hedge as a makeshift goal, and pretending he had opponents facing him. It was hardly the same, but it was the only option he had.
On this particular day, he was heading out to the far eastern end of the village, where he planned to play in one of the fields. He tended not to use the same field every day, in case one of the farmers caught him and chased him off. He walked slowly down the road, taking time to enjoy the warm sunshine. It had been a belting hot summer, and even Robert had been forced to stay inside in the middle of the day. But now, as the afternoon wore on, the temperature was more manageable.
The last house on Preston Road, at the very edge of the village, stood a little separate from the other houses. It was a dilapidated old building, quite out of keeping with the rest of the well-kept village. The front garden was overgrown with tall grass and weeds, and there were several tiles missing from the roof. Robert looked up at it as he approached. He thought that the whole place looked like it might fall down at any minute.
The house belonged to some batty old woman, Robert remembered, who kept herself to herself and was rarely seen around the village. She was by no means the only elderly woman living alone in Huddlesby, but from what Robert had been told, she was regarded as something of an oddity. Robert had never met her, and had no particular wish to.
There was a ginger cat sitting on the low wall that ringed the front garden. It flinched slightly as Robert passed, but returned to its sedentary position. Robert kicked his football on past the house’s front gate. He glanced up and stopped in surprise. Sitting under the window to the right of the front door, leaning against the wall, his head barely visible above the long grass, was a teenage boy.
He looked about Robert’s age. His clothes were scruffy and ill-fitting; they seemed too long for him, as if meant for someone taller. He had a mop of dark hair and a round face and, Robert could just make out, there seemed to be an odd-shaped scar on his forehead. His head was down, and the expression on his face was blank as he stared at the ground in front of him.
“Er, hi,” said Robert, but the boy didn’t reply. He didn’t even seem to have noticed that Robert was there. “Hello?” said Robert again. “Are you all right?”
At last, slowly, the boy looked up. There was a redness around his eyes, but he didn’t seem to have been crying. “Oh, hi,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Have you been hurt or something?” asked Robert, pointing to his forehead.
The boy’s hand went to his own forehead and touched the scar there gingerly. “I’m fine,” he replied unconvincingly.
The boy didn’t seem particularly eager to engage in conversation, but Robert was not going to pass up the opportunity to talk to someone his own age. “I’m Robert, by the way.”
“Er, Neville. Neville Longbottom.”
“Do you live here? I thought an old woman lived in this house.”
“Yeah. She’s my grandmother. She’s out shopping at the moment.”
“Your grandmother? What happened to your parents?”
“They’re dead,” Neville answered simply.
Robert shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Oh, um, sorry,” he mumbled. Then, to change the subject, he asked, “What are you doing sitting there in your garden?”
“Thinking.”
The reply surprised Robert. “Do you have a lot to think about, then?”
“More than you could imagine,” said Neville. There was something in the way he said it that made Robert shiver, as if the words were spoken by someone far older. Robert got the feeling this was no ordinary boy of his age.
There was a brief silence, and then Robert eventually said, “Well, you look like you could do with taking your mind off things. Do you like football?” He chipped the ball at his feet up into his hands and showed it to Neville over the garden wall.
Neville looked quizzically at the ball. “Oh, football,” he said. “A friend of mine at school taught me how to play that.” That seemed to Robert to be a very strange thing to say. “No thanks. I’d rather just sit here alone.”
“Oh, come on. You must be totally bored here on your own. I know I am in this dull little village. Just for a few minutes. We’ll only be over the road. What do you say?”
Neville thought for a moment. “Oh, all right,” he said at last. “I’d rather be in your world at the moment than mine, anyway.”
“You do say some odd things, Neville. Come on, then.” Robert carried his ball across Preston Road to the field opposite Neville’s house. Neville got up and followed behind. They climbed over a gate and entered the field. Unnoticed by either of them, the ginger cat got up from its position on the garden wall and followed them.
Neville proved to be a very poor footballer; he was clumsy and awkward and found it difficult to control the ball. Robert eventually put him in goal instead, against the hedge and between two sticks he pushed into the ground. He turned out to be a slightly better goalkeeper, saving one or two of Robert’s penalties, but was not very athletic. Although he didn’t seem to be particularly enjoying himself, he seemed to be a lot less miserable than he had been.
As they played, Robert tried to find out a bit about Neville, but he was a very quiet and reserved boy, and didn’t seem prepared to share much. From what he would say, Robert gathered Neville was a year older than him and went to a boarding school, but he didn’t say where. Like Robert, he was fed up of being out of touch with his friends over the summer, but there seemed more to it than that, like he was waiting on news of something. He said nothing about how he got his scar.
“These summer holidays really drag on, don’t they?” observed Robert, as he lined up a free kick from twenty yards out. “Almost makes you grateful for school. Is yours a good school?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” replied Neville. “I don’t know how I’d cope without it.”
“See if you can stop this.” Robert took a short run-up and struck the free kick hard. The ball sailed up high over Neville’s outstretched hand, over the hedge, and Robert heard it bouncing across the road on the other side. “Oops, sorry, my fault. I’ll get it,” he said.
“No, I’ll go,” said Neville and headed over towards the gate. He went to climb back over it, but as he did so he looked up for a moment as if he’d heard something, lost his footing on the top rung of the gate, and fell backwards to the ground.
Robert rushed over to him. “Neville, are you all right?” he asked. Neville was flat out on the ground, breathing heavily. His eyes were open, but he was staring up past Robert with a strange look on his face. “What are you looking…” Robert stopped mid-sentence. “Is it me, or has it suddenly got really cold?”
An odd chill had come over him. Robert looked up into the previously clear sky, which seemed to be darkening and clouding over by the second. Neville began desperately trying to get to his feet. “Run!” he yelled inexplicably. “Just run!”
He pushed Robert forward and Robert, confused and strangely numb from the cold, started running, along the line of the hedge parallel with the road on the other side. He looked back, and Neville was sprinting behind him, continually looking over his shoulder and struggling to pull something out of the pocket of his jacket. But there was nothing behind them. They seemed to be running away from thin air. And yet, Robert got the strangest feeling there was something following them, like an invisible mist or shadow coming nearer.
He was about to shout back to Neville to stop, to ask him what was happening, when, not looking where he was going, he stumbled on an uneven patch of ground and tripped himself up. He rolled over and over on the grass and when he stopped, he was looking up. At first he thought he must have hit his head, because he could see nothing, only blackness. But he was unhurt; rather, all the light around him had faded away.
The chill that had come over him deepened, and it seemed to gnaw at his insides. He felt alone, alone and hopeless, trapped in the darkness, and he didn’t know why he felt that way. As he seemed to fall deeper and deeper into the dark, he heard himself crying, yelling out for his father…
He was seven years old, and his dad had taken him to see Blackburn Rovers play in the FA Cup. But as they had come out of the stadium, somehow they had got separated, and he’d spent what seemed like hours amongst the strange crowd, desperately searching for him. He thought he’d never see him again…
“Expecto… Expecto Patronum!” A voice crying strange words pulled him back from his memory, and he realised the voice was Neville’s. “Come on, work! Expecto Patronum!”
A flash of light swept over Robert and the fog cleared from in front of his eyes. He could feel his arms and legs again. Pulling his head up, he saw a strange ball of light hovering in mid-air a few yards away. It slowly faded away.
“No!” yelled Neville, and Robert turned to see that he was on his knees, holding a carved wooden stick like a conductor’s baton in his outstretched hand. “That’s all I can manage, and it won’t hold them. I don’t think I can do it again. Let’s go!”
But Robert found it difficult to get up, and he could feel the darkness creeping up on him again. He half rose, but his legs felt weak.
At that moment, behind Neville, Robert saw a man scrambling over the gate into the field. He was short and squat, with bandy legs. He was dressed in a dirty overcoat and the whole look of him was seedy and down-at-heel. Breathing heavily with the exertion, he ran in their direction and raised another baton like the one Neville had. “Expecto Patronum!” he cried.
To Robert’s astonishment, the silvery image of a small dog leapt from the tip of the baton and charged past Robert. It stopped a few yards beyond him, and looked to be silently barking at thin air. The air seemed to clear and warmth returned to Robert. He looked up at Neville and the man, open mouthed.
Neville, still on his knees and visibly shaking, also stared up at the newcomer. “Thank you,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Mundungus Fletcher at your service, sir,” said the man in a broad Cockney accent. Seeing that Neville’s face was still blank, he continued, “No time to explain, let’s get out of here.” He pulled Neville to his feet and looked over at Robert. “Ruddy ’ell, is that a Muggle? That’s all we need, a Muggle mixed up in this.” He walked over to Robert and offered his hand. He smelt distinctively of tobacco. “Come on, lad,” he said. “I ain’t gonna ’urt you, trust me. We need to get inside before any more of those ruddy things turn up.”
Robert accepted Fletcher’s hand and stood up. He found his Blackburn Rovers shirt was torn along the right side seam, but he was physically unhurt. So many questions were buzzing through his bewildered mind, but he asked the most pressing one. “What… what just happened?”
“Time enough for that later. Come on.” Fletcher led Robert and Neville back down along the hedge towards the gate. Both boys were trembling and stumbled along. Fletcher kept looking behind him nervously. When they got to the gate, an elderly woman with a ginger cat at her side was waiting for them. “Got ’em, Figgy,” said Fletcher.
“Where the hell were you, Dung?” shrieked the woman, who looked familiar to Robert. “You were supposed to be keeping watch! We have a Dementor attack, and it’s five minutes before you show up! You’re lucky Mr Paws here found you. Where were you, taking the opportunity to raid some poor Muggle’s house?”
“I was not!” retorted an indignant Fletcher. “I, er, dozed off.”
“Dozed off? Dozed off?” The woman’s voice reached an earsplitting pitch. She lifted her handbag and whacked Fletcher over the head. “Neville Longbottom nearly has his soul sucked out and you dozed off?”
“I got ’ere, didn’t I?” said Fletcher.
“Eventually! And, you know, I’m surprised that awful mongrel Patronus of yours can even drive off Dementors.”
“My Patronus is a terrier,” protested Fletcher.
“It’s a mongrel, and you know it, Dung,” said the woman. “But never mind that now. You, Neville, where’s your grandmother?”
“D-Diagon Alley,” replied Neville.
“Right. You, Dung, get to Diagon Alley and tell Mrs Longbottom. Then find Dumbledore and inform him. I’ll deal with the boys. Go on, get going!” Fletcher nodded glumly, turned slightly on the spot and vanished with a loud "crack". Robert jumped and stared at the space where Fletcher had been in disbelief. The woman shook her head. “Muggles. This is not going to be good. Come on, let’s get inside.”
They crossed the road to Neville’s house. At the gate, Robert noticed his football, which had rolled up against the wall close by. He reached down and grabbed it, clutching it tightly as one familiar thing amidst the sea of craziness that seemed to be happening.
The inside of Neville’s house was much cleaner and tidier than the outside. They walked along a hallway and into a large kitchen, where Neville and Robert slumped into wooden chairs at the table. Neville looked to be even worse off than Robert; he was wide-eyed and still twitching.
Robert looked up at the elderly woman. “I know you,” he said. “You’re Mrs Figg, the woman with the cats who lives down the road.”
“That I am,” said Mrs Figg, whose cat had curled up by the stove and seemed fast asleep. “I expect you’re feeling mighty confused at this point, eh, boy?”
“I didn’t know there was another witch living in the village,” said Neville.
“I’m a Squib, actually,” replied Mrs Figg. “Your Gran knows about me, but we never told you. I moved here shortly after you did as a baby. Dumbledore thought it a good idea to have someone close by who wouldn’t attract attention, who could keep an eye on the family. At first, your Gran and Granddad didn’t tell you because they were trying to shield you from wizarding society. But after he died and you went off to school, it was more a case of letting me get on with my life. Not that any of us can do that any more, of course, with You-Know-Who back.”
“Sorry,” interrupted Robert, “but did you just say witch? And wizard?”
“Oh dear,” said Mrs Figg, shaking her head again. “Look, whatever your name is, I’ll give you the short version, because it won’t matter anyway and we’ve already broken the Statute of Secrecy a dozen times over. There are witches and wizards living secretly in the world, okay? They can use magic, like the stuff you’ve just seen. The creatures that attacked you, you couldn’t see them, but they’re called Dementors. They take away all your good feelings and then, if they’re feeling really nasty, they suck out your soul. They’ve gone now; you’re safe. Don’t ask any more questions.”
If it wasn’t for what he had just experienced, Robert would have burst out laughing. Wizards? Magic? Soul-sucking creatures? It all sounded utterly ridiculous. What sort of mad world was he living in? Next thing, they’d be telling him that unicorns and vampires were real.
Mrs Figg turned back to Neville. “Now listen to me, because this is very important. Did you use magic to drive the Dementors back? Did you cast anything before Dung got there?”
“Y-yes,” stammered Neville. “I-I had to. It was only a weak Patronus, not even a proper one, that’s all I could manage.”
Mrs Figg sighed. “This could get ugly, really ugly. And in front of a Muggle too. Of course, it was in self-defence, but the way things are at the moment…”
But at that moment, there was a loud "pop" from the front garden, and the front door burst open. Into the house strode a formidable looking woman. Dressed in green and wearing an absurdly elaborate hat, she had a look of thunder on her face. Robert could tell that this was a woman not to be crossed.
She marched into the kitchen and bent down in front of Neville, seizing him by the shoulders and staring into his eyes. “Are you all right, Neville?” she said. “You weren’t injured?”
Neville shook his head. “No, Gran,” he mumbled.
“Good.” Mrs Longbottom stood up and turned to Mrs Figg. “Arabella, I want to know everything that happened. I think I’m owed a very good explanation. I’ve already given Dung Fletcher a piece of my mind. I hope his toes never grow back.”
Mrs Longbottom and Mrs Figg moved into the sitting room to discuss what had happened, leaving Robert and Neville sitting in the kitchen. Robert stared across the table at Neville, whose head was down. “So, this is your life, then?” he asked.
“Pretty much, yeah,” said Neville, without looking up.
“Why were those creatures after us?”
“There’s a guy out there who wants to kill me,” answered Neville matter-of-factly, as if discussing nothing more surprising than the weather.
“Really? What sort of a world do you people live in? If this is the sort of thing that goes on, no wonder you keep yourselves secret. Why would anyone want to kill you?”
“I wish I knew.” Neville pointed at the scar on his forehead. “He killed my parents. He gave me this. But I still don’t know why. And now he’s back.”
The chill that the Dementors had given Robert returned to him at Neville’s words. There was long silence, broken suddenly by a scrabbling at the kitchen window that made Robert jump. He looked to the window and saw that there was an owl, of all things, perched on the sill outside.
Neville went over to the window and opened it. The owl hopped inside. It was carrying a letter in its talons, which Neville took. The owl hopped out of the window and flew off again. Robert decided not even to bother asking for an explanation this time. He just wanted to get away from this madhouse and back home.
Mrs Longbottom rushed back into the kitchen and grabbed the letter before Neville could open it. She tore open the envelope and began to read. “No,” she muttered to herself. “No, they can’t do this. They can’t get away with this. I won’t allow it.”
“What is it, Gran?” asked Neville, looking over her shoulder.
“They’re expelling you from Hogwarts. They’re also charging you and Fletcher with gross violation of the Statute of Secrecy. It says it carries a minimum sentence of one year in Azkaban.”
Robert saw Neville’s face turn white. He collapsed into a chair, staring vacantly into space with his mouth half open. “Don’t worry, it won’t come to that, not if I have anything to say about it,” said Mrs Longbottom. “And Dumbledore won’t let them throw you out of Hogwarts. If anyone comes here for your wand, they’ll have to get through me first.”
“What about the Muggle?” asked Mrs Figg, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“They’re sending over somebody to deal with him as soon as possible,” replied Mrs Longbottom.
Robert leapt up from his chair. “What do you mean, ‘deal with me’?” he demanded. “What’s going on here?”
“Calm down, boy,” said Mrs Figg. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, you’ll be fine. It’s just, you’ve been exposed to our world, and that needs dealing with. When the official gets here, he’ll explain it.”
“Stuff that, I’m getting out of here,” said Robert, but as he went to the door, Mrs Figg barred the way.
“I’m afraid we can’t let you leave,” said Mrs Longbottom, and when Robert turned to face her, she was pointing her, well, “wand”, Robert gathered it must be, straight at him. “We don’t want to hurt you, but we’re in enough trouble as it is, and you leaving will only make it worse.”
“So I’m a prisoner?” asked Robert. Neville shuddered at the mention of prison.
“Just for a few minutes,” replied Mrs Longbottom. At that moment, another owl appeared at the kitchen window, bearing another letter. Mrs Longbottom opened it. “It’s from Dumbledore,” she said. She read it, nodding at its contents as she went. “Your arrest and expulsion from Hogwarts have been rescinded, Neville, pending a hearing. Good to hear Dumbledore still has some clout at the Ministry. He advises you and I to stay put, as if we were going to go anywhere else.”
Some of the colour returned to Neville’s cheeks and he breathed deeply. Robert looked across the table at him. Although he understood nothing about him, or his world, he felt terribly sorry for Neville. He was only a boy like him, and not particularly strong or clever it seemed, and yet the weight of the world looked as if it rested on his shoulders. He apparently had suffered greatly already, with the prospect of only more suffering to come. How much could one boy take without breaking?
They waited in silence for several more minutes. Robert idly spun his football in his hands, wondering what would happen next. Then, all of a sudden, there was a knock at the door. Mrs Longbottom went to answer it, clutching the letter she had just received. Robert heard raised voices and a firm but determined tone from Mrs Longbottom. They seemed to be arguing over Neville’s fate. Finally, the official said, “All right, Mrs Longbottom. I will check back with my superiors. No further action will be taken against your son tonight. Now, what about this Muggle?”
“Through here,” said Mrs Longbottom. They came into the kitchen. The official was tall and wearing a long black robe, making him look rather intimidating. Robert clutched his football nervously.
Neville leaned across the table towards him. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?” Robert asked.
“For letting me forget for a while,” answered Neville. “I envy you right now.”
“Turn to face me,” said the official, in a commanding tone. When Robert did so, he found that the man’s wand was pointed directly at his head. “Obliviate!”
* * *
It was a beautiful summer afternoon in the ordinary little village of Huddlesby. Robert Ashcroft was walking down Preston Road, towards his home in the middle of the village, kicking his football as he went.
He had a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that he had forgotten something, but he didn’t know what it was. He had just spent a fun, normal couple of hours practising his football skills in one of the fields at the edge of the village. Now, tired and hungry, he was heading home for his dinner.
He reflected that life in Huddlesby wasn’t all that bad, although it was terribly dull. Nothing interesting ever happened in the village, and Robert was looking forward to school starting again in September. He reached his house, where his mother chided him for getting his clothes so muddy.
She never did find out from him how he’d managed to get a tear in his favourite shirt, though.
Neville Longbottom and the Order of the Phoenix by Sonorus
Chapter Notes:In which young Robert Ashcroft has a very strange day.
* * *