The Many Occupations of Percy Weasley (and How Neville Longbottom Suffered Through Every Single One)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A long Neville/Percy fic in four parts written for the Percy Ficathon in 2008.

PART ONE

A high-pitched whistle alerted Neville Longbottom that something was wrong.

He was withdrawing his wand from its protective pocket in his wetsuit even as he broke the surface of the water with a loud splash. He allowed the Bubble-Head charm that was partially obscuring his vision to dissolve away.

He didn't so much spot the man staring at him in astonishment as his attention was yanked towards him by the outburst of what sounded like bewildered cursing issuing from the man's mouth. Neville couldn't really be sure what he was saying, since the noise of the whistle was almost overpowering his speech. And, incidentally, the man also wasn't actually speaking English.

Neville didn't need to understand the words, though, to understand that he was royally screwed.

"Hell," Neville muttered. "Oh hell."

Neville pointed his wand at the man, who looked uncertain whether he should be climbing down to help Neville out of the water or stumbling away from the edge.

"Stupefy!"

The man fell to the ground out of Neville's line of sight, but Neville took the fact that his stunned body hadn't toppled forward into the ocean as a good sign that he probably wasn't hurt. Neville tucked his wand back away and swam towards the sheer ice drop-off that separated him from both his gear and the man who had just stumbled upon him. He grabbed the lowest rung of the ladder he'd spelled for himself earlier that morning and began the tiring climb to the top, dripping near-freezing water all the way up.

The man had collapsed next to Neville's pack, which had clearly been opened and rifled through by the man when he'd happened upon it. It was no wonder Neville's proximity alarm was blaring so loudly. Neville dug through the sample phials and equipment inside his gear bag and pulled out the presently-spinning item. He touched his wand to it to deactivate it. When the tinny loud noise died away, it left just a ringing echo in his ears. Neville thought that he should have felt relieved that the assault on his hearing had ended, but one look back over to the stunned man was enough to double his anxiety instead.

The man was clearly a Muggle judging from his reaction. He'd witnessed Neville emerging from freezing cold water without even shivering (despite the fact that he was only wearing a thin wetsuit, and even that was more for manoeuvrability in the water than to insulate his body) and without any of the breathing tanks or other equipment Muggles would have needed to survive down there, even had the cold not been an issue for them. He'd also obviously seen Neville's gear, inside which were any number of magical items that were illegal to allow Muggles to have any contact with.

From the Muggle's point of view, Neville should be dead, if not from drowning then certainly from hypothermia.

Neville considered dropping him off at the nearby station and hoping that he would assume he'd imagined seeing Neville. The device that had alerted Neville to the man's presence – a modified Sneakoscope that he'd commissioned specially to alert him when Muggles rather than untrustworthy people were nearby – was intended to alert Neville so that he could stun them before they could discover him. Of course, Neville had forgotten to take into account quite how loud it would have to be for the sound of the alarm to be identified from under the water quick enough to actually help.

It wasn't exactly a new feeling for Neville, but right then he truly felt foolish. He'd known it was risky to work anywhere near any of the Muggle bases. Though there wasn't exactly a huge population anywhere nearby, the possibility of discovery did increase exponentially the nearer he got to an operational station. He had hoped, however, that the Italian base he could see off in the distance was already deserted. It only functioned during the summer and he'd assumed the team had already departed for the winter months. Obviously, Neville thought with some degree of frustration, he'd been wrong. It wouldn't exactly be the first time.

He wished he'd taken his Gran up on her offer to teach him Muggle-repelling charms before he'd left home. Assuming he could have mastered them (which was a fairly big assumption in his case, granted), they would have come in real handy around about then.

Neville's ability to cast spells had increased in his final years of school and in the two years following. He wouldn't have survived the war if that hadn't been the case. However, his talents in Charms ran towards those spells that were necessary for his work. Normally that was just fine by him. After all, unlike many other wizards just out of school, he could modify the heat of a given area accurate to the degree; after all that time spent adjusting greenhouse heating charms, Neville considered himself something of an expert on that front. He might have been slow to catch on to it, but he had eventually learned the Bubble-head Charm when it became popular in his fifth year (though not soon enough to avoid the worst of the Dungbomb attacks, unfortunately). He could even manage to safely Apparate over slightly longer distances than was average, which came in handy when he had to get to Australia or New Zealand to restock his food and other non-magical supplies.

One thing that Neville could not do, however – something he'd never even attempted to do – was Obliviate someone. He'd never been much good with things involving memory, after all. He was as likely to erase the man's whole personality as to successfully remove just the memory in question, especially since Neville didn't even know the correct wand movement. And he certainly couldn't just wait for the Ministry Obliviators to come along and clean up his mess, as he would have back home; the nearest Obliviator would be thousands of miles away. But nor could he allow this man to go about telling people he'd seen a man emerge from the freezing cold ocean completely unscathed. The Muggles could be a bit thick, sure, but that didn't mean it was a good idea to take unnecessary chances.

Neville gathered his belongings together and Side-Along Apparated the unidentified man back to his tent, which thankfully was nowhere near any of the bases. The last thing he needed to cap off his day was for someone to walk inside what looked like a tiny little tent and discover an entire flat, cramped though it might be, kept as warm as a summer's day despite a clear lack of Muggle heating or insulation. Or, for that matter, for someone to stumble across the tent and find the man he'd just rendered unconscious. That'd likely be equally difficult to explain.

Neville tossed his bag beside the bed and then awkwardly heaved the man onto the mattress. He collapsed into the lone chair he had pulled up to the card table where he ate his meals. He didn't even bother drying himself off; the localised warming spell that had kept him from freezing in the water hadn't quite worn off yet and the tent itself felt as if there had been a roaring fire going for many hours. He didn't much care that he was dripping on the floor, either. It had been far too long since it had seen any water. Neville, hard-working bachelor that he was, hadn't bothered to properly clean the place in the fourteen months he'd spent in Antarctica thus far. That hardly mattered, though, since it may not ever have been cleaned before that either, judging by its condition when he'd first received it. Strangely, Neville thought it might even smell better than it had started off. His gran had kept all sorts of weird things in there until he'd borrowed it. It had taken months for the rank smell of eggs to finally fade out of existence.

As he waited for his heart to stop hammering quite so violently in his chest, Neville debated with himself about his options. He obviously couldn't stick around as long as the man had any memory of meeting him in strange circumstances. Nor could he afford for the man to go missing for any significant amount of time; surely someone from his base was bound to go out looking for him?

Luckily, for once Neville knew exactly how to get himself out of trouble. Not easily, mind, but it was a manageable solution nonetheless.

He visualised his usual Apparition point in the southern part of Tasmania and turned on the spot. The sheer distance, as usual, made him dizzy nearly to the point of passing out. He rested there, on the outskirts of a small Muggle town, with his head between his knees, breathing deeply and regaining his equilibrium. He counted himself lucky, really, that he'd never splinched himself. As it was, it felt like he'd been squeezed through an opening the size of a needle eye and then been stretched back out to normal size all in the half a second between Disapparating and Apparating.

Once Neville thought he could stand up before ending up straight back on his backside, he Apparated once more. This time his destination was a much shorter distance away to the Australian government building in Canberra. The Muggles all walked through the hallway without giving it a glance, as if stencilled lettering proclaiming 'Department of Magic' was quite ordinary in their world. Then again, even without the Muggle-repelling charms, they might not have noticed the Department anyway, considering how tiny it was.

The only reason Neville himself knew where to find it was that he'd first arrived from Britain via the local International Floo Station just beyond that door. He didn't have fond memories of it. Not in the slightest

Though the tiny foyer inside the department was fairly packed, a man wearing a skin-tight neck-to-knee bathing suit and dripping on the tiled floor apparently stood out from the crowd. Just as well, really, since he was in something of a hurry. A security wizard appeared fairly quickly in front of him – obviously he looked a little deranged or dangerous, or perhaps both.

"I've just popped in from Antarctica, do you have a moment?" wasn't exactly the best start to a conversation when he needed to be considered sane so they would help him, but he couldn't really see much of a way around it. He quickly explained his predicament. Though the wizard didn't seem to completely believe him (despite the fact that he was quite obviously fresh out of the ocean wearing skin-tight apparel), he nonetheless delivered Neville to the resident Obliviator.

Even after living in a place where he might very well be the only person for miles and miles, the fact that the Ministry of Magic of a whole region could survive with just one Obliviator on staff was still something of an eye-opener. The magical community always seemed a lot larger when you were actually within it, Neville thought, but it quickly became obvious how heavily they were outnumbered when he looked at the small number of witches and wizards living somewhere like Australia, where the population was admittedly fairly minimal to begin with. It was no wonder the Ministry back home suddenly seemed more afraid of discovery by the Muggles than ever before.

"I'm performing herbology research in Antarctica," Neville quickly explained. "On oceanic species of plants. A Muggle found me coming out of the water without any of their life support equipment. He was foreign – Italian I think – so I couldn't question him to find out exactly what he'd seen. I Stunned him and Apparated him back into my tent and then Apparated here."

The Obliviator was apparently accustomed to hearing the weird and wonderful in his work, for he took Neville's story in stride without even blinking. In fact, all he asked in response were the co-ordinates of the tent and the location at which Neville had run into the Italian man in the first place. This was lucky, since that was about all the assistance Neville felt qualified to give. Then the man disappeared out the door and Neville didn't see him again.

That, unfortunately, didn't signal that Neville was to be let off the proverbial hook. The Obliviator had obviously advised someone from another area of the department of the situation. A stern-looking young witch joined him in the office only a few minutes later.

Neville quickly discovered that conversations that began with, "Please state your full name and nationality," were unlikely to be particularly pleasant, regardless of how fakely polite the witch in question tried to be. He was detained for over two hours while the witch asked him what felt like the same questions rephrased to establish the simple fact that he was a British wizard who'd been seen performing magic by an Italian (probably Italian, he kept having to correct her) Muggle. By the time he was released, just the prospect of Apparating back to his tent a whole continent away was exhausting. Luckily, by the time he arrived back there, his tent – and more specifically, his bed – was blessedly empty of unconscious strangers. He felt rather like someone who had woken up from a one-night stand ready to flee only to find that the other person had thankfully already acted on a similar impulse. Not that anything like that had actually ever happened to Neville. The papers wouldn't have let him live it down for years.

Still, as he collapsed onto the lumpy mattress and went out like a Lumos within the minute, Neville spared a thought to muse that it wouldn't be long until he could return back to England and potentially have sex for the first time in over a year. Not-completely-satisfying one-nighter or otherwise, he didn't think that he'd ever looked forward to anything more since those last days of praying the war would end.

The Ministry witch he'd dealt with in Australia had officially cautioned him, stating that an official foreign affairs investigation may be required if he was brought to their notice for violating the International Statute of Secrecy again. It was, therefore, justified alarm that caused Neville to trip over… well, over a completely flat bit of floor, to be honest, when he heard a voice outside his tent one evening just a few days after the previous incident.

It really would be terrible luck if he was discovered by Muggles twice in one week. There were only a few hundred people at most on the whole continent at any given time. In fact, he considered, it would be just Neville's luck.

He unzipped the tent and peered out. Neville's vague hopes that it might be wizards doing a follow-up report were extinguished when he caught sight of the bright yellow Muggle parka. However, the man did not stare incredulously past Neville at how the inside of the tent didn't match the outside, or remark on the warmth escaping from a tent that clearly wasn't naturally insulated. In fact, he looked remarkably poised, as if he wasn't at all out of place standing just outside another man's tent in the middle of an icy desert.

"Mr Longbottom," he greeted almost cordially.

Neville, taken aback, stooped slightly so that he could see under the low-drawn hood. He could just make out the face and a few strands of red hair in the twilight.

"Percy?"

Neville had never known until that moment that a person could ruffle in something as bulky as a parka. Percy not only managed it, but did it importantly.

Neville had to hold back a snicker at the idea – let alone the sight – of Percy fighting doggedly against the immensity of his outfit in order to cross his arms across his chest.

"That's 'Mr Weasley' to you, thank you Longbottom. I'm here on Ministry of Magic official business, so I'd appreciate some respect."

He pushed his way into the tent without so much as brushing against Neville, which was something of an accomplishment in his get-up.

"Why are you wearing that?" Neville asked with a slightly nervous grin. "A simple warming charm would work much better."

Percy glared over the top of his glasses, which were spotted with tiny flecks of snow. "Some of us, Mr Longbottom, are actually conscious of the existence of the International Statute of Secrecy. I'd hoped your recent experience would have taught you the importance of not flaunting magic about in front of Muggles."

Miles away from the nearest base and camped alongside a glacier that Muggles didn't class as safe to travel near wasn't precisely 'in front of Muggles', as far as Neville was concerned, but he wasn't sure he should push his luck by pointing that out. Percy seemed irate enough as it was.

Neville wondered if this was what it felt like to be five years old and being scolded for touching his father's wand. Though he had no real frame of reference (his Gran having always been about as far from exasperatedly patronising as possible), he could still recognise that he felt only three feet tall.

"I am here, as I've said, on official business. On Thursday evening at forty-seven past ten, the Ministry of Magic received intelligence that you had interacted with foreign magical governments regarding a breach of the International Statute of Secrecy. Due to your present isolation and lack of basic magical means of communication, the Ministry allowed you until Monday morning at nine-o'clock to contact us with an explanation for your conduct, as required by section 54, subsection 2, of the Magical Incident International Co-operation Act."

"The what now?"

"The Magical Incident International Co-operation Act, of course."

"I've never heard of it. How could I be expected to have known what paragraph whatsis of it said?"

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse, Mr Longbottom."

"Really, Percy, you can just call me Neville."

Percy's glare increased in intensity. "This isn't precisely a social call. I'm here on official business."

So he'd said. Repeatedly. Neville stifled a frustrated groan.

"I've been sent to conduct your initial interview to consider whether further action should be taken with regard to your actions."

Neville frowned. "What?"

Percy sighed long-sufferingly and shot a patronising sort of smile in Neville's direction. Neville ignored the impulse to point out that he was barely four years Percy's junior.

"You broke the law, Mr Longbottom. You may have believed until now that your status as a war hero placed you above the legal institutions that the rest of us have to abide by, but criminal activity is a serious matter regardless of how famous you are."

"Cr-Criminal?" Neville stammered. "But it was an accident."

"That will be for the Ministry to decide, should they elect to follow up on it."

"But they shouldn't. Of course they shouldn't. I've already been given a warning by the Australian Ministry, or Department of Magic, or whatever they call it there. I would've thought that'd be enough, especially since I wasn't even anywhere near Britain at the time."

"You are a British citizen, and a member of the wizarding community," Percy informed him officiously. "You therefore fall under the jurisdiction of the British Ministry of Magic, as per the Wizengamot Procedure Rules, Order 4 Clause 1."

"But –"

"The Ministry is thereby entitled to question you with respect to any activities you are involved in which attract the attention of Muggles."

"But –"

"If you refuse to answer the questions put to you, I will be forced to escort you back to London, where you may be formally questioned with the use of Veritaserum."

Neville huffed quietly and gave up on getting a word in edgewise. Instead, he tiredly gestured toward the lone chair in the room. Percy took one look at the tattered state of it and conjured his own chair with a flick of his wand. He shrugged off – or, more accurately, vigorously wrestled with and shook off – his parka. Then he parked himself in the chair, lazing back as if he was there on a social call at Neville's invitation rather than there for 'official business'.

Neville took in the armchair jealously, regretting his limited talents in household Charms and Transfigurations certainly not for the first time since setting up his current living arrangements. His chair, Neville decided as he sat down on it, wasn't even half as comfortable as Percy's looked. And it smelled strange, even in comparison with the rest of the tent.

Neville suspected by the satisfied look on Percy's face that it had been his intention that Neville be uncomfortable for this 'interview'. Neville allowed himself a small hint of a scowl, though he doubted Percy would pick up on it.

Things only went downhill from there, though. It was much in the vein of his questioning with the witch from the Australian Ministry, except that Percy didn't even pretend to make an effort to be civil. Neville put up with it without complaint other than the occasional near-soundless sigh. It was, after all, Percy. Prefect. Head Boy. Something about him always made Neville feel like he was once more that first year boy who constantly forgot the password and had to get his House Prefect to let him into his dormitory. As such, to question Percy's authority beyond a half-hearted attempt to get him to explain himself seemed almost sacrilegious to Neville. Conditioning was hard to break that way.

Still, even if he didn't show it, that didn't mean that Neville didn't feel fairly disgruntled with the way Percy was barking questions at him and barely seeming to listen to Neville's answers. He was only too glad to see the back of Percy as he struggled to pull his parka on once more – a back that looked at least three times slimmer without it on, Neville noted, though Percy was by no means unhealthily skinny like his brother Ron.

"The Ministry will contact you regarding their decision based on this interview."

Then Percy stepped outside the tent and Apparated.

Neville's jaw dropped. What had all that about wearing Muggle clothes to blend in been about if he was just going to go and Apparate out in the open?

He wondered if anyone had ever really understood Percy Weasley.

True to Percy's word, it wasn't long before Neville was awoken by the scratching of an owl on the outer canvas material of the old tent.

When Neville opened the flap, he found a snowy owl that was almost invisible against the endless white of the ground in front of the tent. The owl's beak looked posed to tap once more against the tent material. Even though, if Neville remembered correctly, snowy owls were adapted to live in a similar sort of climate, the owl still seemed to shoot him a very put-out look at having been left outside in the cold standing in the packed snow for so long.

The owl spread its wings and flew through the opening into the warm tent. Neville shut the tent up once more. He followed the bird deeper inside his tent to where it had perched on the chair pulled up to the small card table.

Neville turned the letter over in his hand and broke the Ministry of Magic seal that he'd known he would find there. He hastily unfolded the letter and read it.

Mr Longbottom,Magical Incident International Co-operation Act. In response to the initial interview, the matter has been passed on to the Improper Use of Magic Office, which has decided to hold a further inquiry into the events previously mentioned.International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at the Ministry of Magic at 11 a.m. on the thirteenth of May to determine whether any disciplinary action should be taken. Should you have difficulty returning to the country for this date, please send a reply via the delivery owl requesting an extension and stating a valid reason (in accordance with section 56, subsections (a) through (k) of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy) for the delay.

As you were earlier made aware by a Ministry representative visit, the Department of International Magic Co-operation within the British Ministry of Magic received intelligence that a number of charms on both your person and your belongings were performed at various times in close proximity to members of the non-magical community (Muggles). You further failed to inform that Department when you were discovered by a Muggle, as was your legal duty under the

We feel we must remind you that as a British citizen, you are answerable to the British Ministry of Magic despite your temporary absence from the country. Therefore, as a result of your violation of Section 13 of the

Sincerely,

Percy Ignatius Weasley

Improper Use of Magic Office

Ministry of Magic

Neville thought it might be somewhat unjust that Percy had apparently been both the interviewer making the recommendation to pursue the case and part of the Department that made the decision based on that recommendation. But then again, as Percy had made so clear, Neville really didn't know much about the law in any capacity, let alone the law as it related to the inner runnings of the Ministry of Magic.

It was also fairly obvious that the Ministry's expectations about the ordinary witch's or wizard's legal knowledge was unreasonable. For example, the Ministry clearly thought that the Statute of Secrecy should have been one of those items he shouldn't leave home without, even when his destination was an icy desert at the bottom of the world. That, or they expected every witch and wizard to have memorised the thing. Either way, Neville had no idea what the reasons for delay contained in section whatever, sub-sections who-gives-a-flying-broomstick's-end could possibly be. As the Ministry no doubt intended, Neville thought with a shadow of a scowl. As Percy had probably intended, more the point.

He didn't know whether it was the quoting of specific sub-sections or the perfect penmanship or even just the fact that he knew that the letter's author was Percy Weasley, but for some reason Neville couldn't help but read rather more affectation than was probably necessary into the letter.

Maybe it was even because the owl that had delivered the letter reminded him strongly of Percy Weasley. It was eyeing him almost suspiciously, as if it knew the contents of the letter and thought him a trouble-maker of the worst kind. Neville could just imagine Percy giving him that exact same look over the rims of his glasses.

He wondered whether having Percy on the brain enough to see elements of him in innocent animals was a sign of insanity. It certainly felt that way.

"No reply," Neville immediately told the owl.

The owl finished picking away at the scraps of dinner from the previous night that Neville had yet to dispose of – the fumes of day-old cold sausage leftovers and tea dregs still smelled a hundred times better than the tent would otherwise, after all. The owl then flew to the closed flap of the tent and squawked pointedly, clearly eager to be off. Neville wondered whether the tent smelled as bad to the owl as it did to him. Could owls even smell?

Neville let the bird out and watched it disappear, quickly blending almost seamlessly into the glaring white of the snow in the early morning light. He imagined he'd be following that bird soon enough, disappearing as if he'd never been camped out there in the first place.

To tell the truth, he wasn't exactly sad to be leaving his self-imposed isolation. Once he finished the Ross Sea portion of his research, which shouldn't take more than about two weeks now that Neville could be sure that the Italian base where he'd had his Muggle run-in was definitely vacated, there was very little to keep him there. He had planned to complete his written reports on his research before returning to Britain so that he could present his findings to the Ministry almost upon arrival (preferably before the newspapers got wind of his return and twisted his intentions regarding his research proposal well out of proportion). However, he knew he would have been only putting off the inevitable. He'd been living in the middle of nowhere for too long. Besides, his writing time would be better spent in the comfort of a real room. Or anywhere other than the dreaded tent of the unidentifiable smells, really.

So it was probably just as well he now had a deadline. Though he couldn't rightly say he was eager to go before the Ministry just now. He especially wasn't looking forward to the possibility of having Percy Weasley once more looking down on him as if he wanted to squash Neville like an insignificant bug.

Neville tried not to let the officials who checked him through security in the International Floo Station in Australia see how green he looked at the prospect of his journey home. Sad to say, the long-distance Apparation was a walk in the park compared to travelling literally halfway across the planet by Floo.

Things would be so much easier if only the Ministry hadn't abolished international Portkeys as a security provision during the height of the war. He had rather hoped that would be one of the very first of the arbitrary laws his friends who had gone to work at the Ministry would see repealed. That had been before he'd realised that none of the laws were being repealed at all; rather, the Ministry had just added new restrictions to the existing laws. Neville wasn't particularly happy with the idea that the Ministry's policies were even more constraining now than they had been even at the very worst times of the Death Eater's reign, but there was little he could do about it.

Neville eventually stumbled out of an enormous fireplace in a sectioned-off area of the British Ministry of Magic. One look at him had the wizard waiting to search him for dangerous magical items or hexes on his person scrambling to thrust one of the many sick bags sitting at the ready into his hands.

Neville was very glad that the bags were designed to be self-cleaning. He was doubly glad for quick and easy mouth-washing spells, the importance of which his Gran had drilled into him over the years once she'd discovered just how hopelessly Floo-sick he'd been as a kid (and, sadly, still was).

The security wizard kept his distance for a long while, looking at Neville like he was a volatile wand just waiting to explode. He eventually apparently decided that Neville was done being sick and was therefore safe to approached. He gestured for Neville to display his luggage.

After over an hour of explaining, or trying to explain, just why Neville was bringing foreign plants into the country, he was allowed into the Ministry proper, feeling quite a bit better apart from the pain in his elbows (which were particularly battered because, as usual, he'd forgotten to properly tuck them into himself during his Floo journey). He didn't pause to acknowledge some of the familiar faces bustling through the Atrium to either Floo or Apparate home for the night, even though some of them started at the sight of him. He certainly didn't slow down when he caught sight of a flash of ginger hair; he didn't really feel like talking to anyone who even reminded him of Percy Weasley in his current state. With his luck it would probably be the man himself.

Though the walk from the nearest Apparition point outside the wards of his Gran's house and the house itself wasn't particularly far, it was nonetheless several minutes after he Apparated before he hit the thick brass knocker against the door. He was glad that no one seemed to be around to witness him awkwardly approaching the door and raising his hand to announce himself only to swivel around and retreat down the pathway. Repeatedly.

When the door opened, Neville wasn't greeted with open arms or even by a less overt indication that he was welcome. Instead his Gran stared almost blankly at him. He just stared back at her, trying not to show fear by blinking or averting his eyes. After a while she raised her eyebrows at him and shuffled to one side of the door frame so that he could squeeze past her to go inside.

"Didn't I tell you that you'd only end up right back here where you started?" she asked as soon as she'd closed the door after him. "I told you that you should have applied for a proper job at the Ministry."

"Yes Gran," Neville replied quietly.

She had told him exactly that, of course. Several times. Somehow it was irrelevant that she'd then spent the very next breath deriding the efforts of those in the Ministry to restructure it for the better after the war.

That had been nearly two years ago. Surely it should count for something that he'd successfully supported himself over that time and was well on his way now to fulfilling his goals?

But then, she had something to say on that count, too. She always did.

"And now you've gone and spent all of your parents' money on that wild goose chase of yours as well."

There had been a moment at the conclusion of the war, and even for a few weeks after He Who Must Not Be Named had been defeated, when his Gran had seemed to be almost unconditionally proud of Neville. It was something that Neville had been seeking his whole life. It had opened his eyes somewhat that it had taken standing up to the most evil wizard in living memory and helping to defeat him to bring that pride about. Apparently, though, Neville had not really learned his lesson when he'd seen how easily she went back to always wanting more, more, more from him. There he was again, and her disappointment still cut as deep as ever.

"I just came to see you, Gran," Neville said, fidgeting despite his best efforts. "I haven't seen you in nearly two years, remember? I'm not back here to stay, not really."

She frowned. "You're going to spend even more money just so you don't have to stay here?"

Make up your mind, he thought. The possibility of saying it aloud barely even registered.

"I have enough money to support myself," Neville lied. "And it's not anything to do with not being here. It's just that I've lived on my own for three years. I can't go back to living with someone straight away after that."

"You'll never get married with that attitude."

Of course not. He'd never get married at all, if his Gran was any authority on the matter. Just like he'd never managed to get a proper job, and he'd never taken the right subjects at Hogwarts, and he'd never received the right grades in those that he did take, and he'd never been friends with the right people.

Neville loved his Gran. He really did. And he was sure that she loved him too, in her own way. The problem was that she looked at him and couldn't quite see 'Neville' beyond her initial reaction of 'not-Frank'. He would never just be himself to her, and so she couldn't quite accept him as he was. He supposed that it pushed him to aim high, and that obviously wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes…

Sometimes he wished he could have a normal family. Sometimes he even wondered if it would be better to have no family at all.

But, for better or worse, his Gran had taught him that family was the most important thing there was. So he kept trying, and probably always would. If that meant telling his Gran about his dreams and ambitions and how he'd spent the last years over slightly too bitter tea while she occasionally interjected insinuations that this or that was substandard as if she couldn't quite help herself, so be it.

The Leaky Cauldron had seemed like as good a place as any to stay while he finished writing up his official research report for the Ministry and then looked for more permanent lodgings. After all, the Leaky Cauldron was cheap, for it was also old and dusty and not always entirely sure in its construction. It was about all he could afford, in fact, until he either found a stable job or was finally reimbursed by the Ministry for the money (his inheritance, as his Gran felt obligated to point out repeatedly) that he'd spent to fund his research.

However, Neville hadn't taken into account that in addition to being cheap, the Leaky Cauldron was also busy. He didn't really feel like talking to anyone at that moment, suffering as he was from a mixture Floo-lag and post-visit-with-Gran frustration. It was unfortunate that wading through a sea of witches and wizards and other magical beings (some of which Neville couldn't really identify on sight) without being seen was easier said than done. This was particularly the case, it would seem, when his face happened to be plastered across the front page of the Evening Prophet that a good portion of the patrons were reading.

"Neville Longbottom," greeted a wizard Neville was certain he'd never seen before in his life.

"Way to stick it to 'em, Nev!" said another wizard. Neville thought he might have been a seventh year Hufflepuff in Neville's first year. They'd never exchanged a word.

"Shame on yeh," said a particularly misshapen-looking woman – a hag? "The Ministry don't need yeh causin' more trouble'n yer worth."

Who on earth was she to tell him he was troublesome? For that matter, who on earth was she just in general?

"Can I borrow this?" Neville asked a man who was staring at him wordlessly. He took the newspaper that had been dangling uselessly from the man's fingertips into his own hands and flicked to the front page where he'd caught sight of a photograph of himself (and a terrible one, at that).

"Oh hell," he breathed when he'd read a few lines in. This seemed to further outrage the hag. Neville tossed the paper back to its rightful owner and retreated to the room he'd booked upstairs, unwilling to bother dealing with the masses any longer just so he could finish reading that article.

He wasn't sure he wanted to read the whole thing through, anyway. Just the quote 'The Ministry of Magic wishes to censure Mr Longbottom's actions and to remind the general public not to follow his reckless abandonment of the law' – said by none other than Percy Weasley, of course – was enough to put him off ever reading the Daily Prophet again, to be honest.

However, when he surfaced from his room the next morning at an unreasonably late hour, still feeling groggy, he picked up a copy of the paper without thinking about it. Unfortunately, that meant that he got another chance to read the contents of the article in their even more extended form.

"Merlin," Neville sighed as he picked up an abandoned copy of the Daily Prophet from the counter. Phrases such as 'Muggle abuse', 'international scandal' and 'criminal flouting of the law' pretty much summed up the main points in the article, though the lies and exaggerations did extend well beyond that. He wondered whether the paper had waited until his return – whether this was the first article of its kind – or whether the Prophet had been bad-mouthing him since the incident itself.

Either way, Neville wasn't feeling very impressed about it. Enough was enough, really.

Neville wasn't exactly new to having to cope with his every action being followed by the papers. The problem was that he'd never been so great at the actual coping part. After a life of being more or less unintentionally ignored by people on the whole, Neville wasn't used to the spotlight that came along with suddenly being deemed a 'war hero'. In fact, he'd been so terrible at coping that he'd retreated to the Muggle world. Then, when he'd returned to find the attention worse than ever in the wake of his unexplained disappearance and then sudden reappearance, he'd left the country altogether. It hadn't been a coincidence that he'd ended up doing his research in what had to be the least populated place on earth.

But even though he'd experienced the downfalls of returning to the wizarding world after a long absence once before, he'd thought that by now enough time would have passed that they would have forgotten about him. He certainly hadn't expected this.

"The stories were worse a few weeks ago, when it all happened," Tom said from behind the counter.

Neville glanced up. "Worse?"

Tom nodded. "Worse. They're just recapping their other stories now that you've come back. They've probably got nothing better to write about."

"Right," Neville said. He noted that his voice was completely calm. Deceptively so, in fact. He was anything but calm right then.

Enough was enough.

Neville stepped out of the elevator when the magical voice announced the 'Department of Magical Law Enforcement'. He averted his eyes whenever he saw someone who seemed to recognise him and tried his best to hide the badge that proclaimed that he was 'Neville Longbottom – Applicant for Legal Redress'. He'd tried to unpin it when he'd first seen people reading it with interest, but it seemed to have been magically fused to his shirt when he'd put it on without thinking. He hoped it would at least come off when he left the Ministry. He liked that shirt.

Of course, the fact that he was avoiding talking to anyone he didn't have to talk to made it difficult to find his destination. Eventually he asked a harmless looking witch, who gestured at a desk across the room. Her eyes slid down to his name badge and Neville retreated as quickly as could be considered polite. A pile of books taller than Neville himself both marked the right desk and obscured whether anyone was actually sitting on the other side.

Luckily, the owner of the desk was present, so he didn't have to wait around for hours like he had during his past visits at the Ministry. Neville was a little less fortunate, though, in the identity of the person.

"Percy!" Neville said, stunned. "You're in the legal department now? Weren't you a part of the Department of International Magical Co-operation just a few weeks ago? And then the Improper Use of Magic Office? Not that this isn't a good change for you, what with your obviously extensive knowledge of the law."

Neville could actually see Percy stiffen up as he spoke.

"I've told you, it's 'Mr Weasley', and I'll thank you to remember it. And my employment is none of your business. You're here on official business, I assume?"

"Er, yes. I want to make a complaint against the Daily Prophet for libel."

Percy leaned back in his chair (which still looked a lot more comfortable than Neville's best chair, damn him, even now that Neville was back in relative civilisation in the Leaky Cauldron and Percy was stuck with budget Ministry furniture).

"Libel?" Percy repeated. "I hope you realise that that's a very serious claim."

"I know," Neville said. "That's why I didn't make it in the past, though I don't doubt I had a right to, with the rubbish they've been printing about me ever since the war. But now I really want it to stop."

Percy took up a quill and began writing something – it could have been 'Neville Longbottom is a whiny git' over and over for all that Neville could make it out from that distance – on a slightly battered looking piece of parchment.

"You realise that you actually have to disprove the truth of what the paper says to make out libel?" Percy said as he wrote, not looking up.

"Yes," Neville said.

"I've read those articles. Are you sure you can prove they're wrong?"

"One of the articles implied that I bodily dragged an unconscious Muggle to a cave and had my way with him!" Neville exclaimed. Several people looked in his direction, frowning. Neville ducked his head in embarrassment and lowered his voice. "You're not seriously suggesting that you believe that, are you, Percy?"

Percy merely stared at him sullenly. The silence continued for a long time before Neville realised that Percy really wasn't going to help him. Hell, Percy didn't seem likely to even speak to him again any time soon unless Neville actually forced his hand.

"Perhaps you merely misread what was written. You did say it was only implied, after all. Perhaps you overreacted to the more obvious implication as to your… preferences. They have been the topic of speculation before, after all."

Neville frowned. "I don't care who the Prophet says I'm having sex with. That's not the point."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Then perhaps you're in the wrong department. There's no point in litigating for defamation if the things being said don't bother you."

"But... that's not what I… well…"

Neville threw his hands up in the air and left, not much caring that the whole Department of Magical Law Enforcement probably thought he was having some kind of a hissy fit. Anyone who thought the worse of him for his obvious frustration had clearly never been out-debated – or rather, thoroughly trounced in argument – by Percy Weasley. He was infuriating. He was so… so proper. And even after the war, the Ministry and its lackeys could, in Percy's eyes, still apparently do no wrong. At least, not now that Death Eaters weren't running the whole place, Neville presumed.

Who cared what anyone in the Ministry thought, really? Obviously it hadn't changed since before the war quite as much as the press would like people to believe.

Neville wished that he'd overcome his timidness enough to say that out loud. And right to Percy Weasley's face, preferably.

When Neville appeared at the Ministry again two days later for his 'hearing', he decided that if the Ministry had changed at all, it had certainly not been for the better.

He entered the room expecting to spend a few dull hours being asked questions – he was, sadly, getting used to that – before receiving a warning or maybe a slap on the wrist (probably literally, if the look of the main interrogator was any indication). He left the room feeling absolutely numb and barely able to remember what had happened after the questioning had begun.

It was only later, locked in an Azkaban cell, that he even recalled being sentenced there. To be fair (though not very fair), the sentence handed down had actually been a fine. However, it had been a small fortune that Neville could barely have afforded even before using all the money he'd inherited from his parents to pursue his research. Being as destitute as he was at that point, he hadn't a chance. The default of the fine had been twenty days in Azkaban. Neville was glad for the first time that there were no longer any Dementors wandering the halls. Even twenty days under those circumstances would have felt like a lifetime.

As it was, Neville was still inordinately pleased when he was released after just three days. Dementors or no Dementors, the wizarding world didn't seem to have any concept of prisoner's rights. He'd learned all about that sort of thing during his first short stint in the Muggle world (at the same time that he'd gained the knowledge of global warming that had provided the basis for his research, funnily enough). However, he didn't think that he'd given the idea the appreciation it deserved up until he'd become a prisoner himself.

He wondered how many of the prisoners of Azkaban who had died there before they had a chance to go mad did so just because they hadn't had enough to eat or drink, or because they'd fallen ill due to im properly maintained hygiene and a lack of heating. After all, Neville could imagine that the Dementors had been even poorer carers than the current guards.

Once he'd been pulled outside of the fortress, Harry Potter came into sight. Neville had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

"All right there, Neville?" Harry asked quietly.

"Never better," Neville croaked, his throat dry from three days of less than adequate hydration.

The ride back to the mainland was mainly spent in silence but for the sound of the water lapping at the side of the magically-propelled boat. Harry didn't seem to know what to say; saving a guy from prison after not having seen him or spoken to him in over a year made for some amount of awkwardness, obviously. Neville wasn't much better off in that department. What did you say to someone who you suddenly found yourself massively indebted to? Not for the first time, either.

"What did you do?" Neville finally asked. "To get me out, I mean."

Harry scowled. "It was all over the paper the next day. Luckily Hermione convinced me to keep up my subscription to that pile of scrap parchment, since that was the first I'd heard of it. I tried talking to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but then there's this no-tolerance policy, and he was… er, a bit unreasonable. He made sure to remind me that he's technically my boss about, oh, fifty or so times. Bastard." Harry grimaced.

"In the end I had to pay your fine, but then it still took another day or so for them to agree to release you early. And it was another seven hours straight spent filling out paperwork before they actually got around to getting you out of there, and it was only that speedy because I reminded them who exactly I was, which you know I hate doing. Gits. I had to watch over their shoulders the whole time to make sure they were actually doing their jobs, I swear."

Neville snorted. "Seems to be a common thing in Ministry employees."

Harry sighed tiredly. "Too right," he said, but didn't make any effort to elaborate. Neville wasn't really in the mood to push him. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know what had put that exhausted look in Harry's eyes, actually. He hadn't looked like that even during the final battle, which had been the absolute lowest point for most people.

Then again, it had probably helped that, unlike all Ministry-related positions, killing Voldemort hadn't come with piles of paperwork that could crush even the most resilient of spirits.

"And the worst of the bunch was Percy bloody Weasley," Harry said some minutes later, sounding as though he'd been letting his anger about the issue build up until it burst. "I mean, how hard is it to fill out one piece of paper? He wasn't even a major part of the case. Just because he was the one who escorted you to Azkaban in the first place –"

"You're kidding!" Neville interjected. The whole thing was still a haze at that point. But then, now that Harry mentioned it, he sort of remembered disconnectedly saying the exact same thing when he'd seen Percy Weasley at the exit of the room, waiting to escort him out. Or rather, he was pretty sure that he'd quite vehemently said, "You're fucking kidding," but that really wasn't the point.

He'd also said things like, "You know this is wrong, Percy, help me out here," and, "You questioned me first, you can tell them a warning would be enough," on the boat on the way over, when he'd recovered slightly from his near comatose state of stunned disbelief.

His words obviously hadn't helped him much, since all Percy had to say for himself was, "No tolerance means no tolerance, Mr Longbottom, even for media celebrities."

Neville thought he had apparently blocked the whole thing out as some kind of self preservation. So that he didn't implode from his frustration with Percy, probably. Or maybe explode, taking Percy along with him. In retrospect, Neville wasn't even surprised. Appealing to Percy Weasley's better nature seemed to be a wasted exercise. It wasn't correct procedure, after all. It wasn't official business.

"Percy's a prick," Neville announced.

Harry glanced sidelong at him. He looked somewhat stunned that the word 'prick' was even part of Neville's vocabulary, let alone that he'd just used it to actually insult someone. He also looked extremely uncomfortable, though Neville wasn't really sure why.

"Er, well, I didn't mean that," Harry said. "Percy's not actually the worst of them, not by far. He's just the worst when it comes to being stubborn. But he's not a prick. Not really. Not most of the time, anyway. Not considering everything. If I was in his shoes, I might be a bit of a git about it, too. Hell, there are those in the Ministry who would say I'm a git as it is."

Neville snorted. "Yeah. You're the git who goes about saving hopeless cases like me and trying to make the world a better place. How do you sleep at night?"

The slight smirk that had developed on Harry's face slipped away in an instant.

"Badly," he said.

They didn't talk again on the boat after that. In fact, they didn't speak a word until they were back at the Leaky Cauldron, where Harry followed Neville without question. Neville collapsed at the counter and ordered a firewhiskey, feeling thankful when Harry chipped in, "Leave the bottle." He was even happier still when Harry managed to draw all of the attention to himself just by being Harry Potter, leaving Neville to gulp back his alcohol in relative peace.

The bottle of firewhisky began to seem like less of a brilliant idea a little later, though. Neville noticed that Harry was knocking back more of it than was strictly healthy. He didn't dare point that out, though. He might have matured and grown a backbone toward the end of the war and since, but Neville still wasn't really a fan of confrontation, especially with people he thought of as his friends.

The upside of Harry becoming quickly inebriated, though, was that he was a talkative drunk.

"Paper's always on m'case, o'course," he was saying. "'Why haven't you married Ginny yet?' 'Why haven't you dumped Ginny yet?' 'When do you think you'll be Head of the Aurorors?' Ugh, geez, I mean the Aurors. What if I don't wanna be Head of the bloody Aurors? What then?"

Neville shrugged unhelpfully.

"At least I got 'em to write an apology t'you for writing rubbish. And the Ministry's apologising for locking you away as well."

"Great," Neville muttered. "More publicity."

"Wossat?" Harry asked, frowning, before launching back into his diatribe. "Better be a right good apology, 'sall I'm saying. Bloody Ministry think they can 'make an example' of you just 'cause you're all famous and stuff. Lotta good it is being a war hero, eh?"

"Yeah," Neville agreed. He snorted. In light of that consideration, he couldn't believe he hadn't seen Azkaban coming a mile away. Of course the Ministry would attempt to make an example of him, considering how high-profile the whole thing had been. He didn't know a whole lot about the 'no tolerance' policy both Harry and Percy had mentioned, but he could imagine that they had even less than no tolerance for breaking the law when it came to celebrities, even if they were unwillingly famous like him and Harry.

Unfortunately, that was about the last useful information he got out of Harry, as he seemed to have finally gone over his limit. Even more unfortunately, Harry's address was among the important information that he couldn't seem to draw out of Harry no matter how hard he tried.

"Looks like you're crashing with me," Neville said breathlessly as he bodily dragged Harry up the stairs, his wand well and truly forgotten at least five shots ago.

"Woah."

The surprised exclamation coupled with the feeling of someone unwinding themselves from his limbs woke Neville up. He opened his eyes to catch Harry finally fully extricating himself.

Harry, seeing that Neville was watching him, abruptly seemed to look even more uncomfortable.

"Okay, the clothes seem like a promising sign, at least, but… well, nothing happened last night, right?"

Neville laughed bitterly. "Like you were in any state for it," he said. "You practically passed out on me after I hauled you up here, and you told me some interesting stories before that, but that's about it."

Harry nodded slowly and then winced as if just that small motion hurt. With the amount of firewhisky he'd downed, Neville wasn't surprised.

"Good. Good," Harry said. He sighed. "It wouldn't have been the first time I went on a bender and did something I regretted." His eyes went wide. "Not that I'd, you know, really regret… you're not a bad sort… if I was going to, with anyone … oh god, kill me now, before I have to do it myself out of sheer embarassment. And pain. Oh, my head hurts."

Harry collapsed back onto the bed, looking even more mortified than Neville felt just then. Which was really saying something.

"I'm with Ginny." Harry's voice was muffled behind the hand that was thrown across his face in embarrassment, but Neville could just make out the words. "That's all I meant. I wouldn't want to with anyone else because I wouldn't want to cheat on her. Again."

That was probably more than Neville had ever wanted to know about Harry's sex life, to be honest. Well, maybe once upon a time… but not now, and certainly not with Ginny in the picture. Neville felt like he had a sudden insight – an insight he'd never expected or wanted – into why Harry refused to tell the papers the reason why he and Ginny hadn't married yet.

Harry sat up slightly and looked more serious, though still more red than usual. "You understand that I didn't mean anything by all that, right? That I don't have a problem with, you know, guys together."

Neville tried not to stiffen. "The thought didn't even occur to me," he lied. In truth, it always occurred to him these days, because he'd caught so much flak about the rumours that had surfaced just after his Hogwarts days.

Harry's eyes narrowed slightly. "I really don't have a problem," he insisted. "Really."

Neville sighed. "That stuff in the paper about me ravishing some unsuspected Muggle against his will in Antarctica was rubbish, if that's what you're worried about."

"And the rumours about the less unsuspecting Muggle before that?" Harry asked, seeming markedly more sober than he had upon just waking. "The plant guy. Owned a nursery, or something. Was that rubbish? No, wait, you don't have to tell me. I totally get not wanting people always in your business."

Neville considered not answering, but then decided to screw caution to hell and back. If people were going to know every detail of his life against his will, they might as well know the truth. It was generally less embarrassing than the rumours anyway.

"Don't worry about it. You're not just people, are you? You're right, the rumours were true for once that time."

Harry smirked a little. "Thought as much. So, as I said, no problem here."

Neville nodded grudgingly in acceptance. He'd probably appreciate Harry's disclosure a lot more when they'd both rid themselves of their hangovers (though Neville's was thankfully a lot less apparent than Harry's) and had a shower. And stopped lying barely a foot away from each other in the same bed. And stopped both being secretly mortified about the whole topic.

"I wish everyone was as accommodating," Neville said finally. "I have to present my research from the last year and a half to the Ministry soon, and the chances that they'll so much as listen to my opening sentence, let alone the rest of it, seem to be getting smaller by the second."

Harry cringed. "Yeah, good luck with that. The Ministry's not really of a mind to listen to anyone who isn't a part of it at the moment. And even then, most of the people who are a part of it don't get much of a say either. One of the many problems of politics, or so Hermione tells me."

"I'm not going to let that stop me, though," Neville said bravely. "I'll make them listen."

Harry gave him a slow smile – a genuine smile, not a smirk or a tired twist of the lips like every other smile he'd seen on Harry's face over the last day or so.

"The Ministry isn't going to know what hit it," Harry said.

Neville hoped not. He'd rather like to shock them. He'd like to shock the whole Wizarding World, come to that. Someone obviously needed to.

Of course, when he and Harry headed downstairs for breakfast and the whole of the Leaky Cauldron burst into excited muttering at the sight of them together still wearing last night's clothing and looking very much like they'd just rolled out of bed, Neville remarked silently to himself that that wasn't exactly the type of shock he was going for.