Courage {Neville Longbottom} (ON HOLD)

Chapter Seventy One

Neville's favorite moments in the castle actually took place on the mornings where they had Herbology. It was one of the classes that he shared with Kefira and all of his friends, leaving him happy to have company and he knew it placed Kefira in better spirits to not feel alone like she did in Potions. He understood the girl's annoyance, he figured it would be the same if someone like Harry started outdoing him in Herbology. It was his comfort zone and as Professor Sprout had pointed out to him numerous times that he was the top student in all of her classes in all of the years she was teaching. It caused him to swell with pride even though he never boasted about it. He couldn't imagine how he would feel if someone suddenly started out doing him after all the hard work he had placed studying the topic. 

That particular morning, he was eager to get started, the first to get moving as they had to work with a plant called the Snargaluff. It was a beast-like plant when it came to its behavior. With a gnarled stump appearance, it didn't look very threatening until the thorn covered vines came into play and lashed out viciously. They were instructed to collect the pods from the plants, green and pulsating that were roughly the size of grapefruits. 

"Oh sweet Merlin," he heard Kefira mutter to herself as she eyed the plant with apprehension. She really didn't look thrilled at all about the daily task as she stared at the Snargaluff. "Such an amazing name for such a dangerous plant. Why give it such a cute name for something so vicious?! Why not call it Dangerous Plant That Will Hurt You....perhaps because it's too long."

Neville chuckled to himself as he listened to her try and develop a new name for the plant while he decided to dive right in and go for the nearest pod. The Snargaluff that they were working with certainly didn't like the disturbance as he was knocked right in the mouth, giving him a bloody lip and several scratches on his face, but he managed to get one. He pulled it out with a small cry of victory, bringing Professor Sprout to glance over. 

She made note of him and the fact that other students were too busy chatting that they had yet to get started. 

"Quite enough chat over here!" She called over to Ron, Hermione, and Harry. "You're lagging behind, everybody else has started, and Neville's already got his first pod!"

Neville turned to Kefira, giving her the easier but grosser task of squeezing the contents of the pod into a bowl.

"Hold on there," Kefira said taking out her wand and pointing it at him, " Episkey."

He felt his lip turn quite hot before it turned cold, but as he lifted his hand to touch his fingers to his lips, it was mended. "Thank you," he whispered to her, " we might be using that quite a few more times until the lesson is over."

"Well maybe not," Kefira told him, " I'll hold the Snargaluff down and you grab as many pods as you can. A little basic teamwork should work in our favor."

The two did work nicely together as they focused, of course, they could escape every direct hit, leaving them with some cuts but they did manage to get plenty of the pods as Professor Sprout requested. Neville was incredibly fast when it came to the work, there was no hesitation and it seemed he knew exactly what to do. He had what appeared to be a small scalpel in hand used to puncture the pods precisely in order not to spill any of the little green tubers that were inside and collected in the bowls. 

"It's like you do this professionally," Kefira laughed after wiping some dried blood off of her face using the sleeve of her robes.

"Well, if I'm being honest, Professor Sprout showed me how to go about it earlier last week because I was already down here. So I guess I had a bit of an advantage. Sorry."

"I have no idea why you're apologizing. It's great that you can do this and I know you worked hard to have this level of skill, don't apologize for it...own it."