SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK

Chapter 1 ~Remedial Heroes and Where to Find Them~

Hogwarts was quiet.

Neville walked the corridors, feeling a little bit like a ghost wandering around. The attendance was at an all time low, the lowest in a couple centuries at least. Where there used to be children in robes littering the castle there were empty spaces. It was bizarre, coming back here, seeing the broken crossbeams and spell burnt walls that hadn't been repaired yet; seeing the empty spaces where students used to congregate.

Neville supposed that it was hard not to focus on the faces of the people who'd returned as well. People he'd never even talked to once in his seven years at the school were familiar faces now. He'd been struck up in a conversation with the group of returning eighth year Hufflepuffs. They'd been in Dumbledore's Army, but he'd never actually spoken to them without some threat or mission or spell work hanging over his head.

He vaguely wondered how Harry Potter felt, if it was this relieving for him to talk about simple mundane things.

Being an 'eighth year' student was a lot like being spill over. Rituals like the Welcoming Feast and Sorting were comforting but he knew he was skimming off the top, not really belonging there. He supposed a war right in your own home could make anyone feel displaced. Curfew was closing in fast and though he wasn't worried about being caught by a prefect – it seemed silly now anyway after running a rebellion for so long – Neville was completely and utterly knackered.

He waved to a group of returning students, younger than himself of course, as he hopped onto one of the floating staircases. It seemed like just yesterday he'd been tumbling down them and holding on for dear life waiting for a professor to collect him.

Still, the feel of the sword of Gryffindor was still ghosting across his hands, the whispered cruel words and curses of the Carrows snuck up on him occasionally from behind coats of arms. Neville always had trouble remembering, but for once he couldn't exactly forget.

It was peace. Neville smiled idly to himself.

He got to the top of the fragmented staircase with red and gold tapestries hanging in tatters from its sides. The Gryffindor stood there waiting for it to bank right but the sentient staircase seemed to have better ideas and attached itself to the seventh floor. He waited a few more moments but the stairs did not budge.

A bit annoyed, he got off them and a moment later they broke away from the floor and twirled away back down for more students.

Neville scrubbed at his neck and ambled down the new corridor, intent on finding another set of stairs to get back on track.

He didn't think he'd find trouble instead.

"You're disgusting." A weedy younger looking Gryffindor boy was pointing his wand at someone just beyond a bend in the wall.

Neville paused, biting his lip with his slightly oversized front teeth.

There was a group of weedy teenage wizards, all with their hoods up and wands pointing towards someone unknown.

"After what you pulled last year, you've got a lot of nerve showing your ugly nose here again!" Another of the boys angrily thrust his wand forward and a shot of yellow light flashed.

There was a high pitched yelp of pain followed by a string of curse words.

Hexes began flying fast and furious and Neville had to duck in order for a Bat Bogey Hex to go sailing over his head. He whipped around and saw the group of boys sending a volley of spells at their victim who was spending more time dodging than retaliating.

Neville quickly drew his wand and pushed up his jumper sleeve. It was too early in the school year for this kind of bullying. His book bag dropped to the stone floor with a loud thud as he ran forward.

"Stop it!" He warned, tying the other Gryffindor's arm to a tapestry with a well placed lasso charm.

Neville pulled back the boy's hood.

It was Dennis Creevey.

A feminine snarl filled the hallway and one of the bullies was struck down with a curse that caused his finger and toenails to start growing vines.

Neville dashed forward and realizing the person being attacked was a girl made him all the more cross.

"STOP!" He yelled and slid into the girl to try and protect her and they went flying to the stone floor. He managed to pull her to his chest and take the brunt of the fall in his right shoulder as he threw up a shield charm just in time for the Anteoculatia hex to bounce off.

There was no way he was showing up to the common room the first night of school looking like a moose.

It was in that brief second of imagining himself with antlers that he realized he was holding Pansy Parkinson.

Well it looked like Pansy Parkinson. Half her head was growing oak leaves.

She stared up at him, dark hair wild about her face and then spit out an acorn which nailed Neville in the eye. She then kicked him in the shin and Neville yelped, watching her with one wide eye as she hobbled up and raised her wand again.

"Think twice before you mess with me." She wheezed towards her attackers, and flung her arm back with a blinding blue light gathering at the tip of her wand.

"No-No way," Neville didn't even hear himself ramble. She'd take down half the wall with that spell!

Just as her arm came forward like she was lobbing a quaffle, Neville sprung up and grabbed her round the middle, lunging so her aim went wide.

Pansy screeched and the next thing he knew, there was a loud crash and glass began showering the entire floor.

Everything stood still for a moment of silence before Neville even attempted to move. He could feel the shattered glass sprinkled all over his back and then he heard it the few telltale crunches as the group of boys ran away.

Almost lazily he opened blue eyes that had become screwed shut in the fallout and saw his reflection in a large shard of glass lying near his face. He looked confused. Nothing new there.

"Longbottom. Get off me."

And he was on top of Pansy Parkinson. Hells.

He backed up as fast as humanly possible, not really caring that he was going to have bloody knees because – Ow. He'd just kneeled in some broken glass, hadn't he?

Neville swallowed, inspecting her with twitchy eyes. "Are you all right?"

Pansy glowered at him and ripped some of the oak leaves from her head. "Fine. You absolute git."

Neville frowned. "Git? I'm not the one who—" He gasped when she turned her head to survey the damage to her robes, which were admittedly much nicer than his own, even though they were the same regulation uniform.

"You're- you're bleeding." He pointed out in an awkward motion towards her neck.

Dark rivulets of blood were sinking down into the pristine white of her collar. Pansy gave him a panicked look and clapped a hand around her neck, pulling it back to find it coated in red.

"Oh hell," She breathed. "I've been killed. I've been killed!'

"Um, it's not that bad." Neville shifted closer, trying to make out the cut. It was a slice not too deep on her neck, obviously a flesh wound from one of the flying pieces of mirror. A chill ran up Neville's spine and he gingerly took a largish piece of the glass between his thumb and forefinger, holding it out to her.

"See?"

"That's odd," She whispered, holding her neck in a white-knuckled grip. "I can't see it."

"Er," Neville shifted even closer and tilted the bit of glass a different way. "It's right there."

"I mean, my…" Pansy had a wide eyed vacant look about her, her lips had suddenly gone ashy. "My reflection."

The blood from Neville's face drained.

"What in the—What's gone on?" Professor Vector stood at the head of the corridor, strict scowl etched into her features. Everyone knew she ruled the seventh floor. Some even rumoured she'd scribbled bits of complex Arithmancy in the stone that allowed her to spy.

"Is it safe?" She asked in a withered tone and came closer, boots crunching on the twinkling bits that covered the flooring.

"Wait, Professor," Neville jumped up waving his arms. "The mirror, she can't—"

"Miss Parkinson," Vector's upper lip curled, surveying the area. She waved her wand and in one unimaginably slow second, Neville watched her banish the mirror shards leaving the stone floor dull and lifeless once more.

"Detention."

"Pardon?" Pansy exclaimed. "Are you serious? I've to go to the infirmary and report the little bastards who—"

"Detention!" Vector announced even louder and shot up a shower of sparks that every student knew heralded the Headmaster, or in this case, Headmistress McGonagall.

Pansy stood gobsmacked before the old woman yanked her by the arm and they were gone down the stone steps, leaving Neville staring after them, his mouth dry.

"I heard Pansy Parkinson started a fight in the seventh floor corridor last night and she's got some sort of awful curse on her!"

"Really?"

"Yes, she destroyed a centaur statue by the painting of that goblin, you know— the one that was charmed blue—"

Neville set down his book bag behind the bench and took his seat. His brow creased as he reached for a piece of toast.

"Look! There she is, the absolute cow."

Neville chewed the dry bread slowly, listening to his classmates. His brain fizzled underneath his slightly scruffy bed hair.

"She doesn't look much different. Shame."

"How should someone with bad luck look, exactly?" Neville asked before he even realized he'd opened his mouth and said too much.

The two gossiping Gryffindors looked at him then spared each other a glance.

"You shouldn't have helped her." Vicky Frobisher, told him with a certain sincerity about her. The fact that she'd been calling someone a cow a few moments before didn't seem to stir her sweetness.

"Not at all! Great hero, pushing her out of the way like that." Cormac crowed from a bit further down the table near the sausages, causing Vicky to look put out. Not just people from Neville's class were repeating years, it seemed. He smiled a bit in gratitude even though the word 'hero' made him flustered.

Cormac went on, "A curse is a lot more deserving than some antlers."

Vicky's friend Eloise snickered not so surreptitiously behind her pumpkin juice. "She'd have looked better with antlers."

Neville's face fell.

"Still behaving like ickle firsties I see." Dean appeared and took a seat next to Neville. "Jealous and catty so early in the morning!"

The two girls and Cormac sent the Dean a glare before warily going back to their own business.

Neville grinned and Dean thumped him on the back before waving his wand in a kind of invisible loop the thrusting it forward as if he were casting a fishing line. He tugged and a plateful of scrambled eggs slid towards them on the rope-like charm that extended from the tip of his wand. The plate jerked forward and Neville had to catch his glass before it rattled onto its side.

"Sorry, mate, still practicing that one."

"You'll get it." Neville smiled.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione found their way to the table as well, creating a comfy bubble of familiarity at the breakfast table.

They were welcome faces. All of them hadn't been to school all the year before, but Neville was glad they had decided to come back now. It was harder now, being the leftovers that were trying to hang onto Hogwarts. All the other Gryffindors in his year had left. In fact, many of the older students in all of the Houses hadn't bothered to return to school. A lot of families had moved away, and while he had become friends and confidant to a whole slew of students, friendship under duress wasn't the same thing as easy familiarity.

He chanced a peak at the green and silver table across the hall. Slytherin house seemed absolutely empty compared to the years before.

Neville thought he'd done all right in his classes despite the whole evading torture and freeing-the-students Dumbledore's Army thing. He had planned to start his apprenticeship with Professor Sprout this year and not worry about getting his other NEWTS. That had been the plan, up until Gran had looked him over directly after the battle, covered in scars and blood and dirt, and told him he'd make a fine Auror just like his parents.

Dean took a bottle of ketchup and poured it all over his eggs causing Harry to make a sick sound. "There's a cure for that curse isn't there? I heard she'd broken a mirror."

Well at least it seemed like the Hogwarts grapevine had produced some accurate fruit.

Dean chewed his eggs before speaking. "Like some old wives' tale. You have to wait an hour for every piece of the mirror then bury them in a grave, or something like that."

"Soubs like rubbish do bee. You coub be huck counting duh beeches dor seven bears!" Ron didn't chew before talking, which earned him a look of reprove from Hermione.

She frowned before interjecting like she always did when she had information to impart. "Actually I think the cure for breaking the spell of seven years bad luck required the victim to wait seven hours before even picking up the pieces. Then the unlucky individual would have to bury the glass shards outside under the moonlight."

Everyone stared at Hermione like her name was Luna with that completely random bit of muggle knowledge. Although the actual Luna was sitting next to Ginny a few plates away.

Luna just smiled, dreaming eyes watching the ceiling obviously seeing something no one else could. She'd taken to eating at the red and gold table since the beginning of the term because all her friends were in Gryffindor. Luna didn't think belonging to another house meant that she had to distance herself from the only people she felt close to.

Most of the students still thought she was Loony though.

"Actually, wizarding mirrors are quite different." Luna said, finally bored of watching the dull stone ceiling. There were cobwebs visible and a wayward owl was rousting on one of the crossbeams. It shook itself and one small brown feather floated down through the clear air. All the magnificent magic that used to span there had broken during the battle and it hadn't weaved its way back yet.

To Neville's left, Harry gave a sympathetic groan and rubbed the back of his hair, probably remembering all the times the dorm's mirror accused him of being unkempt. Neville shook his head with a smile.

"She's right," Neville said, scraping his fork scraping against its plate. "Usually nothing happens. But in the rare occurrence of a certain clause," Neville didn't notice his voice drop a few degrees, "Seven Years Bad Luck is a real and unfortunate curse."

The other Gryffindors looked at him with varying degrees of confused faces, except Ron who was looking at his food. Hermione had a rushed expression pinching her face, like she wanted to bolt to the library and obtain a book on the subject before anyone gave away the ending.

"Oi," Ron polished off his plate. A half grin plastered itself on his face as he dropped his arm around Hermione's shoulders making her jump a bit. "Just tell us before she bursts, mate."

Neville gave a little laugh and shook his head.

"It's an old bit of magical superstition." Luna explained, sprinkling salt on her pumpkin pie. "They say the image held in a mirror is actually a piece of our soul. If you break the mirror then it's quite easy to lose that piece, which becomes trapped in the many shards of glass."

At that, Neville could practically feel Harry freeze up beside him. Ron and Hermione went from being comfortable to alert, eyes narrowed just a fraction. Ginny was watching Harry worriedly, Neville could see it out the corner of his blue eye, but the tight-knit trio offered no explanation for their sudden unease.

Luna took a taste of her dessert and made a little sound of discontent so Neville floated her the pepper shaker. She smiled with gratefulness.

"It's a tad like a portrait who doesn't like his frame, I imagine. If a piece of your soul gets lost, it could be unfortunate."

Dean and Ginny shared a look before the redhead cleared her throat. "Could be?"

"Yes." Luna explained simply. "Split souls could have some advantage."

Harry shook himself out of whatever reverie had abducted him and his palm met the solid wood table with a loud slap, shaking Ron and Hermione out of their thoughts as well. "But it returns to you after seven years, doesn't it?"

Neville nodded quickly, feeling Harry's magic start to prickle along his skin. He knew it wasn't a wise idea to pry. "Yes, it comes back. Luck always finds its way back."

Harry cast his eyes away from the table at that and Neville knew the black haired wizard was better left to his thoughts.

"So what's the actual clause – the part that makes you get the curse?" Dean asked.

"Oh," Luna seemed happy with the seasoning of her pie because she took a bigger bite, taking her time to chew and swallow. "I think Neville could better explain that."

Harry turned to him then with raised eyebrows. Neville hadn't noticed until that moment, but the familiar lightning bolt scar seemed faded like it never had before. He vaguely wondered if it would eventually disappear, if his own scars would disappear.

"Neville?" Harry asked, pushing the glasses further up on his nose.

Neville looked to his plate, turning the salt shaker around in his hand. "Well," He started and twisted his mouth. It had a mind of its own and didn't want to choose an attractive arrangement. It tasted like badly seasoned pumpkin pie, still sweet but tainted.

"Well, I couldn't…" He tried again. "If you look into the broken pieces and can't find your reflection, well, then the magic takes effect." He looked up to the surprised faces of his friends.

"And then you've got seven years bad luck. The only way to release yourself is to put the mirror back together again, by hand, so your reflection can return."

"That could take an awful long time…" Hermione surmised with a thoughtful expression.

"Speaking about bad luck," Ron groaned. Most students were gathering their book bags and leaving the Great Hall. "I've got to charm a reference letter out of McGonagall for the Auror program."

Neville shook his head. "I tried that before term. The Ministry has set some sort of special program. She's assigned me remedial classes instead."

"Damn." Harry had a way with words.

"Oh no." Ron rubbed his hands down his face causing him to look like he was melting. "Remedial. Bloody heroes of the Wizarding world and we're remedial."

All around them the girls laughed.

TBC...