That I Should Rise and You Should Not

Chapter Four

The rough, chesty, painful coughing caused Neville to wince every time it came from Andrea. In the small corner of the hardware store, she sat bundled up in as many blankets as he had been able to find, shivering in her fever. He narrowed his lips, returning his attention to the potion he was brewing in a cast iron pot, raised above the flames of a small camping stove.

As awful as he had been at potions in school, most of it had been due to his terror of Professor Snape, and not from his incompetency at the subject itself. As a Longbottom, he had been raised knowing so much about plants and their wonderful uses in potions, his grandmother had made sure he read as many books on the subject of herbology and its crossover subject of potions just encase his magic had never blossomed.

The thought of his grandmother left a lingering hole within, but no longer was it painful. He could smile at the memory of her. Never would he ever thought that he would have missed the old woman and her stupid, ridiculous hat, but he did, despite all her faults, she had been the woman who had raised him and in her own, strange way, she had loved him.

Often at night, staring up into the starry sky, he wondered if she would have been proud of the young man he had become.

So much he had learnt about himself, and his Gryffindor courage, since he had been flung away into the vortex of the Portkey. Whatever would Professor Snape think of him now, if that old bat could see him. He chuckled as he stirred his potion a few times, letting the bubbles on the surface of the thick liquid settle.

Would he even be recognisable as Neville Longbottom, butt of all the Hogwarts jokes? Due to the serious lack of food, he had thinned down, and from the long, tedious hours of just walking, placing one foot before the other without true direction, his limbs had toned.

Andrea told him he looked a little bit more like a snobbish English lord now, whatever that was supposed to mean. She had laughed, saying his nose was long, his cheeks high and his chin pointy. So—what—he looked like Draco Malfoy? What a bone chilling thought.

Neville shook off a shiver.

Something dropped from a shelf.

Neville snatched his loaded gun. His finger hovered over the trigger as he stared at the open doorway into the back of the shop. Shadows shifted back and forth in the murkiness of the filtered sunlight. Gradually he lifted onto his feet, stepping over his work station. He inched out of the door.

The sunlight streamed through large windows, dancing with the dust in the air. Shadows flickered again. On swift toes Neville followed the shadow, coming out behind shelving.

He jerked to a halt as the glint of a steel blade against his throat stole the air from his lungs.

"Merlin!" He reared back on his heels. "Michonne, don't...do that."

Michonne's blade loosely dropped away. Even in the bright sunlight, she was like a wraith, the dust frightened away from her as she moved through the sunbeams in a swift slink. He had become accustomed to the bleakness that constantly surrounded her, as if a dementor had sapped all happiness out of the very air she walked through.

Neville lowered his gun. "You scared the crap out of me."

She shrugged. That was the extent of what he would get out of her. Neville shook his head, shoving his gun back into its battered hoister. Michonne finished with checking the ropes of the two pet Walkers they kept nearby. Neville rolled his taunt shoulders as he wandered through the shelves, into the back room again. He flung up his arms upon noticing his potion bubbling. No. Nope! No! Lunging over the work station he quickly stirred the pot, turning off the heat.