Neville & I

The Hogwarts Express

   I had been waiting for this day for years and years!  I, Y/N Brown was finally going to Hogwarts!  My twin sister, Lavender, had also been admitted.  She was my best friend, my confidante, my comrade!  This was so exciting!  I smiled around the platform, skipping with my trolley.  My toad, Lilibeth (named by Lavender) croaked happily as I scratched her ear.

   My happy spell was broken by the whines of a boy nearby "TREVORRR, I've lost him Gran!".  Interesting, I thought, what kind of person loses his toad before the first day even STARTS?  Nevertheless, I decided I would help the poor round-faced kid, after all Lilibeth had a knack for finding other toads.

   I ran up to him and his gran (much to the protests of Lavender) and said, "Uhm..hi..I'm Y/N Brown.  This is my first year...I saw you lost your toad?".  He looked at me like some sort of savior, "Yeah, but d-don't go telling anyone!".  I smiled and replied "Of course I wouldn't!  Look, my toad Lilibeth is great at finding other toads!  I'm sure she can find him!" .  I raised Lilibeth up to Neville and he patted her with a smile.  Neville's gran on the other hand was looking at me with a skeptical eye.  I had never felt more untidy, as she looked me up and down I remembered my thick, messy hair, my large oafish hands, and my pertruding buck teeth.  I smiled at her, because yeah maybe I wasn't perfect, but I wanted to help this Neville person.

  I released Lilibeth to go look for Trevor.  Neville looked at me skeptically, no need to doubt me.  I knew exactly what I was doing.

   "Want to get a compartment so when Lilibeth comes back you can get Trevor directly?" I asked Neville.  He nodded, a bit pink from the heat and smoke on the platform.  We clambered into a compartment.  As I sat down, my sister Lavender came running up to me, "Y/N!!  Where were you? And who is this?" she said with distaste.  "This is Neville." I said.  She looked at him with a disgusted face and said, "Well, Y/N..if this is who you want to sit with..I guess I'll leave you be.".  Lavender then stalked off.

   "Sorry about that."  I told Neville cheerily.  He just nodded, I took that as an 'it's ok'.  We sat in awkward silence for a while, till Lilibeth came trotting in, Trevor in tow.  "Trevor!" Neville yelled happily.  Wow..I thought...he's so sweet with his toad.  I watched him hug Trevor and picked up Lilibeth.  Placing her up by my trunk, I asked Neville, "Do you like plants?".  

   His face sort of lit up, "Yeah, I love them!".  Finally, we had SOMETHING in common.  We spent the rest of the train ride discussing plants and new potting methods from our Herbology textbooks.   We ended up joking about water plants and their abilities, trying Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, and watching outside counting cattle.  This was a good start to a Hogwarts school year.  I could tell that we were gonna be friends.