Courage {Neville Longbottom} (ON HOLD)

Chapter Thirty Three

Neville was already feeling down, especially after the most recent Care for Magical Creatures class. Despite Kefira and his other friends telling him that he had done nothing wrong, the boy was still internally kicking himself. Due to the fact that his voice had lacked confidence, Professor Umbridge was able to manipulate his words not only against him, but Hagrid as well. The last thing he wanted was for Hagrid to get into trouble. The man obviously didn't deserve such treatment, it was bad enough that some students didn't treat him with respect, he didn't need the faculty treating him poorly too. 

But things were getting worse in the castle as one evening, Neville was awoken with a start, along with the other boys in the dorm as Harry was thrashing about and yelling in his sleep. The students were all up in the beds, wide awake as Ron tried to calm his best friend down but as Harry came to wake up, he didn't settle down at all. The boy's expression was frantic as he claimed that he needed to see Dumbledore, he needed to see someone that would be able to help. He and Ron left, leaving Neville, Dean, and Seamus completely confused.

"We need to get a new dorm mate," Seamus huffed falling back onto his pillow before pulling his duvet over his face. "We lose way too much sleep with Harry and his night terrors."

"That's not funny, Seamus!" Neville told him, knowing it wasn't something that Harry could control. He suffered from night terrors plenty when he was younger and they were nothing pleasant.

"I wasn't trying to be funny!" Seamus countered. "But some of us would like to get the usual few hours of sleep without interruption. It's always something and it just happens to happen at night!"

"Seamus, just be quiet and go back to bed," Dean sighed, turning on his side away from the boy and looking over at Neville. "Just ignore him, Neville."

Neville nodded before lying back down in his own bed, but as the lights went out again, he couldn't find himself falling asleep so easily. He remained wide awake for a couple of more hours until his body finally caved in to exhaustion. 

The next morning, he was hoping to start fresh or at least find out what happened to Harry and Ron during the night. They obviously did not return as the beds were as they left them the night before. He started off with a shower to wake himself up and hoped that Kefira was already awake as Dean and Seamus decided they were going to sleep in after the night disturbance.

Fortunately, he spotted Kefira in the common room, talking to Angelina about upcoming Quidditch practices after the Christmas holidays. Already they had found another replacement beater, which Angelina didn't look very thrilled about, but they needed someone. They needed a team if they were going to have any chance at taking the Quidditch Cup and McGonagall was putting on plenty of pressure for them to do so. 

"Look, I'm not making any promises that I'll be any good at this," Kefira told her. "I might have a mean swing but my flying skills aren't exactly up to par with the rest of the team."

"That's fine!" Angelina told her. "I'll help you out extra if I have to. I just have to know that you're committed to the team."

"Yeah, I am. But Angie, you do realize that Umbridge can't stand me? She's going to look for any reason to get me off the team or to get Gryffindor's team permanently banned?"

"Well, don't do anything to get her on your case, understand?"

Kefira quickly nodded under the girl's stern gaze before Angelina smiled. "Good, then we're all set. I'll let you know after Christmas when the practice will be held. See you later!"

Angelina left out of the common room, leaving Kefira still for a moment before the girl shook her head. "That woman is beyond mental."

She went to turn and head back up to the girl's dorm, when she spotted Neville, patiently waiting by the boy's dorm staircase.