Fic: "Blowing Gum Wrappers" for bryonyraven

[springmod]

Title: Blowing Gum Wrappers
Author: jncar
Recipient: bryonyraven
Rating: PG
Characters: Andromeda Black Tonks, Neville Longbottom, Alice Longbottom
Summary: Alice Longbottom's best friend from Hogwarts has a chance encounter with Neville at St. Mungo's Hospital, and decides to tell him about what his mother used to be like. Set in the summer during OotP.
Author's notes: My recipient said she liked character sketches and friendship fics, so that's what this is. Also, I managed to work in all but one of the characters that she requested, but in a somewhat unconventional way. I hope she likes it!


Blowing Gum Wrappers

The acrid scent of antiseptic and potions hits me as soon as I walk through the doors, setting off the familiar twinge of nausea in my gut. But I ignore it, and force my face into my usual smile.

I wave and nod at the various Healers and Medi-wizards as I walk through the corridors. I know all of them by sight, and most by name. It continues to surprise me when some don’t remember my name in return. It’s expected that one learn the names of the people one sees each and every week, after all.

As I make my way down the Spell Damage corridor, the faces are increasingly familiar, and I exchange personal greetings with them all. I know this place almost as well as my own home, by now, after more than thirteen years of coming to volunteer twice a week.

At last, I reach the end of the hall and use my wand to unlock the door of my own special domain-the Janus Thickey ward for permanent spell damage.

As I step inside, Glinda gives me her usual hug of welcome and begins to update me on how all the patients are doing. As she talks, someone catches my eye. Someone new. A visitor.

I try to listen to Glinda, and nod at all the right times, but all I really want is to get a good look at the interloper. On Tuesdays and Fridays Alice and Frank are supposed to be mine. That's how things work. I don’t like having my schedule disrupted.

He is sitting next to Alice's bed, his back to me, hunched over. He might be reading to her. From the style of his clothes he seems to be very young. Perhaps even still in school. I begin to realize who he might be.

"Glinda," I interrupt her. "Is that young man Alice's son? Is that little Neville?"

Her smile softens, and she nods. "Yes. But not so little anymore. This is the first time he's ever come to see them without Augusta-he’s really becoming a man. So tall! He’s going into his fifth year at Hogwarts come September."

"His fifth year?" I ask, my astonishment ringing in my voice. "Has it really been so long?"

She nods again. "Hard to believe, sometimes."

I haven't seen Neville since his first birthday party-just before Frank and Alice went into hiding. My annoyance has melted away, and I find myself burning with a desire to meet him.

Glinda finishes briefing me on today's work, and I move over to Gilderoy's table, still keeping an eye on young Neville. Gilderoy flashes his brilliant smile at me, and says, "Angelica! So good to see you again!" He never can remember my name properly.

I begin to help him answer his latest batch of fan mail. Nothing makes him happier than to hear from his fans and dictate replies. Glinda is beginning to think that he may be ready to learn to write again. I hope so. I don't think any of us will miss fan-mail duty once he can do it for himself.

I take up the first letter and begin to read. I fall quickly into the usual pattern of reading, bantering with Gilderoy about how dearly he is loved, and then writing out a reply loosely based on his dictation. But I keep loosing my train of thought as I glance over at Neville.

Frank, as usual, lays quiet and still, staring blankly at the ceiling above him. But Alice is sitting in her bed chewing on her favorite treat-a piece of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Every few minutes a pale blue bubble will slide out of her open mouth and float up to join the cluster already hovering above her bed. She stares up at them with child-like delight.

Neville is indeed reading to her. It looks like a magazine of some sort. Once in a while he'll hold it up to show her a picture. She'll glance at the picture for a moment, give her son a vague smile, and then look back up at her bubbles.

After nearly a half an hour of dividing my time between helping Gilderoy and sneaking glances at Neville and Alice, I see Neville stand, put the magazine down on her side table, and lean forward to kiss her forehead. She blinks at him rapidly, and rubs the spot as if it left a mark. He turns to place a similar kiss on his father's forehead. Frank remains as impassive as ever. Neville turns back to Alice to say goodbye one last time, and she reaches out to him, offering him something.

As he takes the crumpled bit of paper from her hand, I recognize what it is and my breath catches in my throat, a sudden tear prickling the corner of my eye. I don't know why I'm being so silly-I never cry in public!

Neville stuffs the paper into his pocket, and walks toward the exit.

"I'm sorry, Giledroy," I say, "but I just remembered a quick errand that I have to run. Here's your photo album to look at until I get back." That should keep him occupied for more than long enough. That man could stare at pictures of himself for hours.

I stand and follow Neville into the hall. "Neville?" I call after him. "Neville Longbottom?"

He turns, and I gasp in surprise as a familiar round face looks at me out of this young stranger's body.

Now I’ve gone and frightened him

"I'm sorry," I say. "You look…you look so very much like your mother."

He glances back at the doors behind me, as if wondering what resemblance he could possibly bear to that thin, white-haired ghost of a woman that sits in her bed staring at bubbles.

"I meant you look how she used to look, when she was your age."

That got his interest. "You knew my mum?"

I nod. "She was my best friend when we were at Hogwarts together."

His face lights up, and when he smiles I can finally seen hints of Frank in his face. "I've never met any of Mum and Dad's old friends."

"Well, now you have." I stride toward him, holding out my hand. "I'm Andie."

He shakes my hand briefly, with a loose grip. "Good to meet you."

"Good to meet you, as well, Neville. If you have time-I’d like to buy you a cup of tea."

He looks skeptical. I have to sweeten the deal. "I could tell you stories about your mum, from our school days."

His smile is back. "Okay."

He still seems timid, as we walk to the small tea room on the first floor.

“How’s your grandmother?” I ask.

"She's well," he replies, looking down at his feet.

"I'm surprised she didn’t come with you."

"She couldn't make it today," he mumbles, and I think I know why he looks so nervous.

"Does she know you were coming here today?"

He looks up at me with those big wide eyes so much like his mother’s, and blinks in fear. "She…she thinks I'm visiting a chum from school. It took me all month to convince her to let me ride the Knight Bus by myself. Please-don’t tell her you saw me here!"

I grin at him. "She won’t hear it from me, Neville. Your Gran doesn’t think very highly of me." I wink at him, and the flush in his face starts to cool down.

As we enter the tea room, he looks up at me. "Why doesn’t Gran like you? You seem nice enough to me."

"Thank you, Neville. It's not so much me, really, as my family. The Longbottoms have some old grudges against us that are far too complicated to explain right now." I step up to the counter and order two cups.

Neville nods. "Gran has lots of old grudges."

Why am I not surprised?

The girl behind the counter hands me our tea, and I carry it to a nearby table. I drink mine with lemon, and Neville doctors his with lots of cream and sugar. The boy must have a sweet tooth.

"Has your Gran told you much about what your parents used to be like?"

He shrugs. "Not much. Just about what great Aurors they were, and how much everyone used to respect and admire them. She’s never told me much about what they were really like-you know?"

"That's a shame." And it really is. The boy should know more about his parents than the idealistic vision that Augusta has drilled into his head.

He looks down and shrugs again.

"Well, I think it’s time I remedy that," I say. "Did you know that your mum's favorite color was pumpkin-orange?"

He smiles again. "Really?"

"Really. And she hated eggs. Couldn't stand them, no matter how they were cooked."

He lets out a short laugh. "I hate eggs, too. But Gran makes me eat them anyway. She says my dad used to eat five a day."

Now I laugh. "He did-but only if he cooked them himself."

He looks at me eagerly. "Tell me more."

I take a sip of my tea, and decide to start at the very beginning. "Let me tell you my first memory of your mother. It was when we were both eleven, leaving for Hogwarts for the first time. We ended up in the same compartment on the train. I was a little shy when I was a girl, and I didn’t have many friends. But your mother was the friendliest most inviting person I'd ever met, and before long we were chatting like old chums.

"I was terrified of the Sorting, because I was afraid of being sorted into Slytherin. All my family had been Slytherin for generations, but I didn’t much care for my family, or for the older children who I knew were already in Slytherin. Your mother seemed like such a lovely girl that I desperately wanted to be in whatever house she was in, and I knew in my heart that someone like her couldn’t possibly be a Slytherin. She was nothing like any of the other Slytherins that I knew."

He's listening wide-eyed, with rapt attention. Augusta must never give him the kind of attention he needs for him to be so entranced by my clumsy little stories.

As tempted as I am to enjoy this captive audience by going on about my own life, he really doesn't need to know why I was afraid of the other Slytherins, or why in some ways I still am. And he most definitely doesn't need to know why my family's legacy still haunts me in everything I do.

No, he is not here for that. He is here to learn more about his mother, not to hear me ramble on about my troubles.

"I was the very first child sorted that year," I continue, "and as soon as the hat touched my head it bellowed out 'Slytherin!' I was devastated. I went and sat down at the Slytherin table and felt completely alone.

"But a few minutes later your mother was called up for sorting, and to my immense surprise, she was also sorted into Slytherin. From the first moment she sat down next to me at the Slytherin table we were the best of friends."

He takes a sip of his tea, and looks up at me. "I always wondered why my mum was a Slytherin. She doesn't sound like any of the Slytherins that I know."

"What house are you in, Neville?"

"Gryffindor." He beams with pride.

"Like your father."

He nods.

"Well, Gryffindors aren't very open to seeing the good qualities of their Slytherin rivals, but not all Slytherins are bad people, Neville. Your mother comes from an old pure-blood family, and she was brimming with ambition. That was more than enough to qualify her for entrance into Slytherin house. But the important thing about Alice was that she never once hurt or used another person on her way to achieving her ambitions. Everything that she achieved, she gained through hard work and honesty. She may have teased the Gryffindors from time to time, like all good Slytherins do, but she never once in all the time I knew her did anything to maliciously hurt another human being. That's something that not many people can say."

This makes him happy. I can see it in his eyes.

We continue to drink our tea, and I tell him a few more stories about Alice. And there are plenty. She was always the leader of our little group of friends. She was the dynamic, intelligent, charismatic one. There were times when I wondered why she hung around with a drab little mouse like me, but she never once wavered in her friendship.

"My older sister was a year ahead of us in Slytherin," I say, "and she used to pick on us horribly. She'd always been very mean to me growing up, so I was used to it. I just let it happen. But Alice wouldn’t take it. Not long after Christmas break that very first year, she found my sister picking on me in our common room, and Alice marched right up to her and shouted at her that she ought to leave me alone. My sister just laughed at her. So Alice pulled out her wand, and hit her with a nasty Twitchy Ears Hex. I'd never laughed so hard in my life. Your mother was fearless. And my sister thought twice about teasing us again."

Neville laughs. "That reminds me of something one of my friends would do."

"Good. You're lucky to have friends like that, Neville. Very lucky indeed."

I spend some more time talking about my childhood exploits with Alice. I haven't thought of them in such a long time. I always assumed it would hurt too much to dwell on the past, but it doesn't-not with Neville smiling and laughing along with me.

Eventually, I move on from stories of our Hogwarts years. "You mother's ambitions didn’t end after we took our NEWTs," I say. "No-she was determined to become an Auror. I never had any such dreams. I was married only a few months after leaving school, and I stayed home with my daughter until she left for school herself. But your mother and I kept in touch. I would send her letters about the difficulties of raising a rambunctious toddler, and she would write back about her adventures nabbing Dark Wizards. And several times a year we would visit with each other.

"Your father had been an Auror for five years when she entered the training program, and most of his friends had thought that he was a confirmed old bachelor. But when Alice walked into his life, all of that changed. He fell in love with her while he was supervising her training. But it took him four more years to get her to fall in love back. When they finally did marry I was her Matron of Honor, and my little daughter was a Bridesmaid. I'd never seen two people more in love than your parents. I never thought Alice could be happier than I saw her on the day of her wedding. But I was wrong.

"She was happiest by far on the day you were born, Neville. She was almost glowing, like she was some sort of angel. She loved you more than anything else in the entire world."

Neville is smiling. A sad, faraway sort of smile.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, looking out the window at the clouds blowing by.

"Thank you," he says. "For the tea…and for… you know."

"You're welcome."

"I should be going now. I don't want Gran to go looking for me at my friend's house."

"No," I chuckle. "That would not be good, would it? But first-did I see your mother give you something when you were saying good-bye to her?"

He nods. "Just this." He pulls the crumpled paper out of his pocket. Just as I suspected-it is a Drooble's Blowing Gum wrapper.

I take it from him, and stare at it, the moisture rising in my eyes again. He probably things I'm barmy, getting teary-eyed over a gum wrapper. "Does she give these to you often?"

"Yeah. Every time I come. Gran usually makes me throw them out."

"Don't let her." My words come out with more venom than I intended, and I can see that I've startled him.

"I'm sorry, Neville. It's just that this is the sort of thing your Gran wouldn't understand. But I think you will. Do you have time for one more short story?"

I've piqued his interest-I can tell. He nods again.

"Your mum and I weren't very fond of two of our dorm mates," I begin. "And in our third year, after our first trip to Hogsmeade, we found a way to really irritate them. We'd each bought several packs of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, and we spent the evening sending the blue bubbles floating around the room. Well-the dorm mates that we weren't fond of started to complain, and it wasn't long before we realized that those pretty blue bubbles bothered them more than almost anything else on earth. From then on we made a point of buying large supplies of Drooble's every time we went in to Hogsmeade, so that we would always have some on hand whenever the other girls were driving us batty. It was the best way to get back at them.

"After a while, we turned the wrappers into a little game as well. We would write notes to each other on the empty wrappers, and levitate them back and forth during our classes. They were small enough that the professors almost never caught us passing notes.

"On any given day you could find us with our pockets full of crumpled Drooble's wrappers covered in our illicit notes. It was our special token of friendship."

His eyes are wide now. I see the light beginning to dawn in them.

It's hard to keep the sound of tears out of my voice when I speak again. "Your mother may not be able to tell you in words just how much she loves you-but I know that enough of her memory is still there that every time she gives you one of these wrappers, she is telling you just how special you are to her in the plainest way she knows how. She's showing you that you are her dearest, best loved friend."

I gently hand the wrapper back to him, and he takes it almost reverently in his hand. His eyes look just as moist as mine.

"Thank you," he says in a voice just above a whisper. "And thank you for looking after her for me."

"As long as I have the strength to stand, I will always come here each and every week of my life to look after her."

He stands. "I'm glad I met you, Andie."

I stand as well. "The feeling is mutual, Neville."

I feel a motherly urge to hug him, but content myself with shaking hands again. He's a good boy. Alice would be proud to know that he came here on his own, just because he loves her, when he could have been visiting friends. He has her strength and open heart. If only he can learn to see it.

As he turns to leave, I wonder if our talk has done anything to pay the debt I owe him. Can anything ever really pay a debt this large? And if he finds out who I really am, will his bitterness erase any good I've done today?

Watching him walk out through the doors of the tea room calls to mind the memory of someone else walking away from me, her long black hair swinging violently behind her as she stormed out of our little cottage.

She came two mornings after the Potters' deaths ended the war. We were tired and dizzy-headed from celebrating for a day and a half straight. We thought it was over. We thought we were free.

I hadn't talked to my sister in more than four years. How could I not open the door to her when she came to see us on such a day of celebration? I knew she had never approved of my marriage to a Muggle-born, but I never suspected that her prejudice ran so deep that she would have come to support He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

I expected to hear words of healing and reconciliation, but instead she began to fume and rage, wildly brandishing her wand. When Ted pulled his own wand she disarmed him in an instant with an expert Expelliarmus.

She roared at us. "No filthy half-blood brat could have ended my Lord's life! It can't be true! It can't!"

She pointed her wand at my daughter, who was crying with terror in my arms. "Could a half-blood abomination like that ever really defeat the Dark Lord? It's a lie. It has to be a lie. He will return, and when he does, I will prove myself to him over the bodies of all those who bring such filth into the world."

Ted stepped in front of us, shielding us from the vile hatred in her eyes. "Get out of my house!"

"Or what, Mudblood? If I don't leave, what will you do to me?"

He stepped closer to her, staring her down with more strength then I'd ever known he had. "I'll kill you with my own bare hands." He took another step forward. "Now go!"

She lowered her wand, and stared at him with a condescending smirk. "Very well, Mudblood. I'll leave, for now. I have more important quarry to catch. But the day will come when my Lord will return, and when he does you will rue the day you brought such an abomination into the world." She shot another glance at my little girl.

With that, she turned and strode out of our door, slamming it closed behind her.

It's as if I can see her all over again, as I watch Neville walking out the swinging doors of the tea room.

Ted had said that we should contact the Auror office and report her. He could see that her murderous intent was genuine. But I had refused to believe him.

That day I proved that I really was a true Slytherin, after all.

I insisted that it was a family matter, and that we should handle it ourselves. I said that I would talk to Cissy, and she and I could talk to Bella together. We would reprimand her, and demand an apology. That would be enough.

I didn't want to bring shame to my family by reporting her to the authorities. I was too proud for that.

Two days later I learned what she'd done to my best friend. And I've been paying for it ever since.

Blacks don't do things out of compassion, or love, or goodwill. That is not their way. And it is not my way either.

I hate this hospital. I hate the glaring lights. I hate that awful smell that always hangs in the air. I hate changing linens and bed-pans. I hate having to learn the faces and names of dozens of witches and wizards that I never wanted to meet in the first place. I hate organizing hospital fundraisers, and schmoozing with potential donors. I hate giving Frank and Alice sponge baths, and reading them children’s books in the hopes of seeing some sign of recognition flicker in their eyes. I hate coming here every week to hover over the empty shells that used to be my best friend and her husband.

No-I don’t come here because of compassion, or love, or goodwill. That's not why I spend so much of my time and effort at St. Mungo's, and that's not why I needed to speak with Neville today. I did it because I owe him. I owe his parents. I owe the whole damned country.

There is a debt to be paid, and I am the one who has to pay it.

That is why I come. That is why I talked to Neville today. And that is why I didn't let myself stop my daughter when she decided to become an Auror, no matter how much I wanted to. Because her work as an Auror will also help pay off our debt.

I am still a Black, and Blacks always pay their debts.

I make my way back to the Janus Thickey ward. My domain. My debtor's prison.

Glinda has taken over fan-mail duty with Gilderoy, so I walk over to Alice.

"I have a treat for you, love." I reach into my pocket, and pull out a new packet of Drooble's gum. "Your favorite." I wave it in front of her blank face. After a moment she catches sight of it, and something akin to recognition lights up her eyes.

She reaches out and takes the packet from me, clutching it tightly in her lap. She looks back up at the blue bubbles still hovering above her bed and hums softly to herself. I stare at her, and I give in to temptation. I let myself think-for just a moment-of how, despite the hundreds of Drooble's packets that I've given her over the past twelve years, she has never once given a wrapper to me like she did to Neville.

My breath is coming in short gasps, and I fight back my tears for the third time today. I can't let my emotions take over. I just can't.

I don't do this out of love.

If I let myself do this for love, it will hurt more than I can bear.

I blot away my tears and close off my heart. It's the only way.

I have a debt to pay, and I’m here to pay it. That's all.

Gradually, my breathing slows again. I sit down in the seat Neville occupied an hour earlier, and pick up a book. I force a smile on to my face, and say, "It's story time, Alice."

This is my domain-my routine. It's time to get back on schedule.