Neville Longbottom was born in late July 1980, the son of Frank and Alice
Longbottom. The only child of the two popular Aurors, Neville's
childhood took a sharp turn for the worse very early indeed. When he was
little more than a year old, Death Eaters looking for their defeated
master hunted down his parents, using the Cruciatus Curse on them in an
attempt to force Voldemort's whereabouts out of them. They did not know,
but even if they had, they would sooner have died than told. That
option, alas, was not open to them; the Death Eaters were not that
merciful. The torment instead drove them both irretrievably
insane.
Though not applied to him directly, the Death Eaters' curses left a powerful mark
on wee Neville. Even a child too young for language will remember
emotionally charged events on some level. When the screaming nightmares
started, Frank Longbottom's mother --- Neville's grandmother and guardian ---
was forced to admit that the child needed more specialized care than
was in her power to give. The Healers at St. Mungo's, who already had
the care of Neville's parents, did their absolute best to calibrate the
Memory Charms so that they would not adversely affect the boy. It was
hoped they would merely make his nights more tolerable and allow the
worst memories to fade out of existence.
Unfortunately, they still overdid it. The Memory Charms did their
work, all right, but they left marks of their own: a tendency to
forgetfulness, a certain difficulty with concentration, and a certain
amount of difficulty with magic in general. That last prevented the boy
from manifesting as a wizard for most of his childhood years, despite
the best efforts of his Great Uncle Algie to waken Neville's potential.
It wasn't until Algie dangled Neville out a window at a family party and
inadvertently dropped him that the unusual toughness typical of wizards
(who, after all, get hit by flying iron balls regularly in Quidditch)
came to the fore --- the boy bounced. A lot. Clear from the house into the
street. The rejoicing was tremendous in Lancashire that day!
Neville's life only got more demanding after that. No longer a suspected Squib
but instead a very definite wizard, he found himself saddled with entirely
new expectations. His Gran had always pushed him hard in school and kept
him on quite a tight leash, but now he had his parents' school in his
future – Hogwarts. That meant serious studies, regardless of whether he
was any good at them or not. While no one was dropping him out windows
or pushing him off piers any more, Neville gloomily reflected more than
once that things weren't much nicer. Most of his lessons seemed to go in
one ear and out the other, no matter how hard he tried; he had to practice
the basics of incantations five or six times before getting them right
even once, and as for texts, they went in one eye and out the other.
Matters didn't get much easier at Hogwarts, but in one respect they did:
he had room to breathe. He had trouble concentrating when he was afraid,
and while he loved his grandmother, he was a little afraid of her as well.
The Potions Master was more terrifying by far than Gran could ever be,
but --- well --- when he wasn't actually in Potions class. . . and when
Professor Snape wasn't prowling the corridors. . . and when he wasn't
glaring balefully at meals in the Great Hall. . . well, it wasn't all
*that* bad. And Neville had friends at Hogwarts, too: Harry Potter,
and Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. That made a difference. Yes,
there were those who thought he'd somehow fooled the Sorting Hat when
he'd been placed in Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff, but they were
wrong. The Hat had seen what became manifestly clear by the end of
Neville's first year: courage is not always nerve and daring. Courage is
in the going on, in the willingness to continue in the face of things
that chill you to the bone because there is something that must be
done.
And oh, yes, there was a thing that had to be done. Neville knew that, knew it
from the very beginning. If he ever thought otherwise, he was reminded
of it every year, at the holidays. His parents yet lived, though they
didn't know him or anyone else. There wasn't a thing the wizards and
witches at St. Mungo's could do to cure them. There were others, too ---
others mind-addled by magic in Ward 49, or wracked and ruined in body by
other work of He Who Must Not Be Named and his minions.
That was NOT going to happen again.
Neville wasn't made of the stuff his parents were; he didn't have the
temperament to be an Auror. He could never have deceived himself about
that. His only really excellent subject was Herbology, which was
conspicuously absent from the requirements to become a hunter of Dark
wizards. In another dark part of England's history, in a world without
magic, he would have become a soldier in a heartbeat so as to guard the
home front. In the Muggle world he'd have become a police officer. In
the wizarding world he didn't have quite the same choices, but there was
one that came close: the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There
were, after all, other threats than Death Eaters --- things and people as
bad as Dark wizards. For all that his Gran seemed intent on making him
into an Auror, or barring that a Healer, Neville knew he wouldn't be
able to pull it off. His practice in Dumbledore's Army convinced him of
something: he could put himself between his friends and harm --- or
between innocent people and harm. And, well, when it came right down to
it, it wasn't a job that required nearly as much in the way of OWLs, let
alone NEWTs. He'd manage.
And when the battle erupted at the Ministry of Magic in Neville's fifth year,
he *did* manage --- and then some. In the face of the people who shattered
his parents' minds he had the courage to go on, and fought as valiantly
as any Gryffindor of legend. He survived what they threw at him and fought
for his friends. He came out of that night alive, free, and sane.
It was enough.
After that it was only a matter of time. Neville kept up his studies, motivated now
to pursue Defense Against the Dark Arts and even --- yes! --- Charms to the
utmost. The studying never got any easier, but the constant repetition
and ceaseless opportunities to practice eventually managed to sink in
for him. When the war got under way in earnest, Neville ranked high
among those who led the defense of the Hogsmeade refugees. Though he was
no Healer, his Herbology knowledge and understanding of Potions (for
despite Snape's attitude in class, Neville *had* absorbed quite a lot of
information from him) stood him in good stead as well. The hospital wing
was quickly overwhelmed and *someone* had to look to the wounded. Far
too young and far too untrained for it, Neville found himself thrust
into the unenviable position of battlefield medic. Again, the courage
was in the going on, and go on he did.
There have been a lot of things Neville might reasonably have wanted to forget
since that time. He hasn't taken that option; he knows what it would
cost. He has instead decided that the magical equivalent of a military
career is where he belongs. Someone's got to do it, and though the
prospect of *another* war leaves his palms sweaty and his mouth dry, he
knows full well that he *can*. And when Neville is good at a thing, he
doesn't give up on it, ever.