An Interference of Portraits

Interfering Sods

I wasn't lying when I said I heard the Floo. It was Neville, arrived to give me my first dance lesson.

I don't have anything to say beyond I was dreadful and poor Neville had bruised toes by the end of our lesson.

'Nice floor, though,' he said with a grimace as he eased off his shoes.

'That bad, huh! Sorry.'

'You definitely improved.'

'That's not much of endorsement. Come and get a drink. You deserve it.'

'We'll need to practice every day.'

'So, I really was that bad?'

Neville flushed but I smiled. I knew.

'You will get better, Harry,' he grinned, 'and the feeling's coming back... slowly.'

As we made our way down to the kitchen I said loudly, 'if any of The Portraits talk to you, ignore them. They're all very rude and terrible liars. And they argue constantly.'

Neville looked terrified as Walburga started on her usual, 'who's this? You need to introduce me, Harry. Is that a Longbottom? Remus, tell me,' she demanded, 'is that Augusta's grandson?'

'Ignore her,' I hissed.

'You actually used Remus's first name,' said Sirius as I dragged Neville past hurriedly.

'No, I didn't,' she said emphatically.

'Yes, you did,' said Phineas II. 'You absolutely addressed Remus by his first name.'

'I certainly did not...'

'No, we all heard you...'

We left them to it.

'You live with that?' Neville asked, looking quite bewildered.

'Yep,' I said, handing him a Butterbeer.

'By choice?'

'Mhem.'

'Why?'

'It sort of happened by accident. I couldn't get Walburga off the wall, so I decided to surround her with all the relatives who'd been disowned, plus a few of my own. Kind of retribution. Only the latent magic in the house brought the still portraits to life. Real life portraits,' I sniggered to myself but Neville just look confused. 'It just happened,' I repeated with a shrug of my shoulders.

I sat down opposite him. 'So, what have you been up to, before I came and stamped on your toes.'

He took a swig of his Butterbeer. 'I've been up at Hogwarts since the war. With Professor Sprout. I started off helping out in the greenhouses and repairing the grounds where the flora and fauna have been damaged.'

'Oh!' I suddenly felt really guilty that I'd run away and gone travelling and had only been thinking about myself. I'd never thought of everywhere that was destroyed by the war and needed restoring.

It must have shown on my face because he said hurriedly, 'no, Harry. It's not like that. Grandmother was being really overbearing. She wanted to know my every move. She was constantly going on at me about being a hero. I don't want to be a hero, Harry. I just did what I had to because he kept hurting people for no reason. I didn't want him hurting anyone else. All I could think of was my parents in St Mungo's and I just wanted it to stop. All through it, when you were away and it was the Carrows just picking on kids because they could and then, when he came to the school... well, we had to survive, didn't we? I wasn't going to just lie down and let him win without trying. So, when I saw the Sword of Gryffindor in the Sorting Hat and then Nagini was heading straight at me, it just happened really quickly and I just swung that sword with everything I had. I never thought about it at the time; I just did it because it was Nagini or me. But everyone keeps going on about it and Grandmother...' he sighed heavily. 'I kind of ran away like a coward and Hogwarts was the only place I could think of to go to. But I'm happy there, at first it was just pottering around, nothing major. Other people were doing the big stuff. They just let me alone. I've found some peace.'