He is lying on the floor of the Gryffindor common room, petrified.
´Why?´ he thought to himself, would they do this to him, they were his friends. Hermione was always helping him, standing up for him, and now this. They had been friends since they met on the Hogwarts express. He might have expected it from Ron or even Harry, but not from her.
The common room floor was cold and just where he lay there was an annoying bump in the carpet. He started to regret getting out of his warm comfy bed.
´At least she could have petrified me in one of the squashy armchairs´, he thought angrily.
He didn’t understand; he was only protecting the Gryffindor House from losing any more points. Their last adventure was far too much, it cost them the House Cup. His Gran lost it when she found out. The howler she sent him, was still talked about around school and he shuddered just thinking about it.
If they weren’t his friends he didn’t have any, just like it was before he went to Hogwarts, he was so lonely then. He didn’t make friends with anyone; the muggles thought he was weird, and the wizards thought he was a squib, so they mostly pitied him. He wondered to himself if toads counted. At least he had his lovely Trevor, the living proof that he was his parent’s son. That feeling in his stomach came back, as it did every time he thought of his parents.They had been so brave and everyone loved them, but now they were just shells of their former selves. He wished he had known them when, before they were taken away in spirit. He tried so hard to make them proud and to prove that he was worthy of being their son. Neville knew they would have wanted him to go to Hogwarts and to try his best. He had fought so hard to fit in this year, and it had worked. A few minor hiccups of course, and a lot of time spent with Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing. All this to make friends that turned his back on him the minute they wanted a new adventure. His nose pounded, it was probably badly bruised. The lump on his back was really uncomfortable too. He wondered how long he had been lying there. Nobody would find him until morning; the other Gryffindors were sound asleep. This wasn’t the worst place he had slept at during his time at Hogwarts, he thought. The time he forgot the password and tried to sleep outside the dorm with the Bloody Baron swooping the halls, was far worse. He started to doze off.
A little tingling feeling awoke him, like someone tickling him on the inside. It was still night and apparently, he was still petrified. The stars were shining through the Common Room windows, creating a pattern of dancing Pixies in between the shadows. His thoughts wondered, about Gran, his parents, his friends and his plant. None of the others knew what the plant he had beside his bed was. They didn’t care much for plants, and some of the others snickered when they saw him talking to it. It was a gift from his father, although he did not mean for Neville to have it. When Neville turned ten, his Gran finally started sorting out his parent’s things that had been stored for years in the basement. She found a book his father always treasured and told Neville about his father’s interest in Herbology. The book was called Magicus Flosbology, by Fyllida Spors, a well-known writer of Herbology, and for Neville, it was a way to connect with his father, and he had cherished it ever since. Reading in it made him feel closer to his father, it was almost like he would have wanted Neville to read it. In hindsight, he was pretty sure that was exactly what he did. It seemed ages ago when he found the hidden pocket in the book. His father hid it well so that no-one would notice it. But Neville read the book again and again, and this one day he saw something different. The night in question was special because the only light he used that night was the full moon. He was sitting on the window sill, trying to let the moonlight be his reading light. Suddenly he saw it; a tiny, almost invisible little bump in the chapter of the Magicus Flosbology revealed itself. He tried to open it but nothing happened.
It took a lot of work before he could figure out how to find the bump again. Thanks to Hermione teaching him the alohomora spell, and after several attempts of different lights and seating tests, he patiently waited for the next full moon and he finally made the little pocket open itself. Inside was a tiny little seed. Only one and when he took it out it stung him so badly he lost it on the floor and it took him several hours of searching before he found it again. It was a tiny spore, the size of a grape-seed in a maroon colour with razor-sharp nails protecting it. He tried to make it grow by filling a pot with dirt and watered it, but it did not seem to work. So he gathered courage and brought it to Professor Sprout, and asked if she could help him make it grow. He still remembered every word of the conversation; his Gran would have been proud to see how well his memory actually worked when he was not under any pressure. A petrifying curse from Hermione was apparently all it took.
´Nonononooo,´Professor Sprout said, looking very stern and almost frightened. ´Where did you get this? This is nothing for a first year to have´.
´I got it from my father’s old herbology book´ Neville said, starting to regret having come to her.
´I absolutely forbid you to try to grow the “Diligits Fortemus”´I have known great herbologists that have tried and lived to regret it´, she said all pale and in a squeaky voice.
´I just wanted to know how to make it grow´, Neville stuttered, now getting really scared she would take the seed from him.
´You most certainly will not,´ Professor Sprout almost shouted. ´I will keep the seed for you until you are old enough to understand just how dangerous it is.´
´No, please Professor,´ Neville was almost crying now, ´It is the only thing I have from my father, I will keep it hidden until you think it is safe for me to grow it.´
Professor Sprout looked at him with what looked like tears in her eyes.
´I knew your father,´ she said, ´he was always very interested in Herbology, I suspect you inherited that from him.´
´You can keep the seed if you promise not to grow it,´ she said, ´and if you are interested I have a need for an assistant during the school year. It will give you extra credit.´
´Thank you, Professor Sprout,´ Neville said with a choking voice. ´I like Herbology,´ he mumbled.
´Yes, well,´ Professor Sprout said, smiling for the first time. ´Just put that seed in a glass container and do not under any circumstance spill any blood or rosewater on it.´
´And you will stay after lessons on Tuesdays to help me, we will start with the emptying of the Bubotuber, they are more than ripe.´
´Bubotuber?´ said Neville, with a smile of cautious anticipation on his face.´I don’t know what they are, but that sounds fun Professor, see you on Tuesday.´
Then he hurried out of the greenhouse before she could change her mind.
It took quite some time before he thought about the seed again. Between school and the extra work at Professor Sprout he was quite exhausted. Until one night he woke again, and the thought of what the seed could be did not leave his head. He decided it wouldn’t hurt to check the library to see what he could find. The very next day he lingered after dinner, and when the others went to the Gryffindor common room, he quickly made his way to the library. There he spent hours looking for a description of the seed in all kinds of books. It wasn’t until very late he finally found it. There it was, the Legend of the Diligits Fortemus. He turned the pages with trembling hands and read with horror.
´Oh no,´ he let out a moan ´not this, I hate extracting blood.´
´Quiet,´ the librarian whispered, loudly enough for the whole library to hear.
He kept reading. The Diligits Fortemus was according to the legend used to test Aurors courage and patient. Nobody knew if it was true, but the few ones that had actually past the test of courage. The Diligits Fortemus takes six months to grow, and it eats only ones a month, during the night of the full moon. It nourishes from its caretaker, and there is only one per plant. If you stop or miss the feeding night during its growth period, it will die. However, when it is fully grown it is connected with its caretaker throughout its life. It is very painful to grow the Diligits Fortemus, the book said, as it feeds on your blood. Every full moon the caretaker needs to stay up as long as the moon is up and keep their hands around the stinging seed. During growths, it has tiny tentacles created to extract the blood from their grower. Then, as the full moon descends, the caretaker has to spray it with rosewater and leave it until the next full moon. However, every week they need to give it a personal memory that is only theirs. The legend has it, that if you fulfill these tasks the plant will always be a part of you and if needed can give its caretaker second chances.
The Diligits Fortemus history told a lot of stories of how the plant helped the owner it imprinted on. For instance, during the dark era of Voldemort, a lot of Aurors were poisoned by some unknown dark curse. Nobody could help them, and a lot of Aurors died, until they tried letting their plants suck the poison out, and it worked. The legend said that Aurors personal plants where kept in a very secret facility guarded by Goblins. You are only to enter if the plant acknowledges you.
When Neville thought back, he had known instantly that he would try.
Maybe he deserved lying petrified on the Gryffindor common room floor with an annoying bump in his back. Was he really any better than his friends? After all, he didn’t know what their reason for adventure was, and it could be as important to them as the plant growing idea had been to him.
Being like his father was always a goal, but he never wanted to be an Auror. Besides, you had to have Exceeds Expectations-marks in Potions, and he was already hanging on by a thread. But the idea of the plant made him more and more curious. Could he do what his parents had done? Could he nourish the plant even though it would be difficult and painful? The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he had to try. And so he did. It was terribly painful to feed it, and it was exhausting to be awake every full moon, but what Neville struggled with the most was the memories. He knew there were so many memories he was supposed to have, memories of his parents as he grew up, of them doing regular things together, like having tea or even they yelling at him for breaking something. But the only ones he had, was when he visited St Mungo’s Hospital and his mother kept giving him a chewing gum paper. They didn’t remember him at all. And it never stopped hurting. But he kept sharing with his plant, the memories he should have had, and of other memories of course, and he realized it helped. Not much, but somehow it felt a little bit better, that someone besides himself knew. None of his friends did. He didn’t want their pity.
So the plant grew, and grew, he nicknamed it Rosictus. As he lay there on the floor of the now extremely uncomfortable common room floor he started to think about the plant. It was ready grown by two full moons now. A beautiful monstrosity that his friends in the dorm said looked like a dead octopus, and smelled like something had died. They kept trying to get him to throw it out but he just ignored them. They all had habits of laying sweaty socks around, and it didn’t smell much different, not really. He talked to it every night now before he went to sleep. It only ever drank rosewater with thyme and needed a piece of chicken every now and then, so it really wasn’t much work anymore.
There it was again, that tingling feeling. Like someone calling him, but from the inside of his head. ´I must have gotten completely bonkers lying here petrified all night, I wonder how long this curse last? Maybe Ron is right, I am mental,´ Neville thought to himself.
´Neville?´ the tiny voice said.
Neville felt chills, like ice was running through his veins. This was even scarier than when he slept outside the dorm, and the Bloody Baron was circling him. But the voice became more and more clear. So he knew he had lost it. Finally, he had gotten completely mental. So he really didn’t have anything to lose when he answered, still in his head.
´Yes,´ Neville stuttered but even in his head, he could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
´My darling Neville,´ the voice said ´what happened to you?´
It was a warm and worried voice, almost loving.
´I am petrified by my friends,´ he thought angrily, ´Well maybe not my friends, as they did this.´
´But why?´ the voice said, growing clearer and stronger by the minute.
´Because they wanted to go on another adventure, and I tried to stop them,´ Neville answered, at the same time pondering whether he would be placed in St Mungo’s Hospital or just in the Hospital wing at the school, now that he was clearly insane.
´Can you un-petrify yourself?´ the voice in his head asked him.
´No, I have to wait for some of my friends to wake up,´ Neville answered, and then, ´excuse me, but who are you?´ he asked, wondering if he would ever be ready for the answer.
´I am you,´ the voice said ´the you that you chose to take care of and care for,´ said the voice.
´Ok, so I have gone insane´ thought Neville to himself, almost relieved that it wasn’t any worse.
´I have been lying here for so long, I am talking to myself. Well, at least I have one friend, me,´ he thought loudly and a bit sadly, but also with a hint of laughter as he thought since he obviously was mental, he might as well enjoy it.
´No my dear Neville, you are as sensible as the day you got caught with Ron and Harry, trying to escape that three-headed dog,´ the voice answered patiently.
´But how did you know?´ Neville pondered, then ´Of course, I am talking to my self, I should know, that’s what got me here.´ He was getting angry again. At his friends, his so-called friends that just had to have yet another adventure.
´No,´ said the voice. ´I am the result of your effort, your bravery, your patience. I am your sweetie, your Rosictus´.
´You’re what?´ Neville was dumbfounded. Could it really be the Diligits Fortemus? But it couldn’t talk, could it?
´You can’t talk´ he thought, ´can you?´
´I can talk to you,´ it answered, ´and I can wake the dorm if you need me to.´
´You can? How?´ Neville didn’t know what to think. He had read a lot about the plant before he started growing it, but he never heard of this.
´Your father secretly researched how we could improve our connections,´ the voice answered, ´and he discovered me, before his last fight he hid me in this book and put a spell making sure I did not reveal myself to anyone but you, before the time was right, and you were ready,´ it stated simply.
Neville felt tears running from his eyes and forming a narrow salty river that ended in his ears. His father had left the plant as his heritage. To him.
´Yes, he knew you would understand,´ the voice said warmly, ´even as a toddler your father could see that you were different.´
Neville didn’t respond. He was actually happy just lying there, petrified, and taking it all in.
It took some time before he could hear the voice of the plant again.
´If you want me to wake the others I will,´ it said, ´but you have to ask me, I cannot act on my own, but I am at your command.´
´My father is a genius,´Neville responded proudly. ´Yes, please wake up the other Gryffindors.´
It was quiet for a while, Neville almost wondered if he had dreamt it all. He could see the sun starting to rise through the windows, creating a warm glow of hope around the room.
Then there was a noise so loud, so piercing it was later told as the sound of a thousand Merpeople above water screaming. The common room filled with Gryffindor students who were both tired, scared, confused, and some of them a bit angry.
´Where is that sound coming from?´ someone screamed
´Heeelp´ shouted someone from the dorm. Every Gryffindor student was talking, screaming or trying to get out of their dorm. However, the fat lady had covered her ears the second the commotion started, and couldn’t hear a thing. It was a complete and funny chaos Neville thought to himself, giggling.
´I am your prefect, please stay calm as I fetch Professor MacGonagall´ said Percy Weasly, trying to sound firm, but he mostly sounded like a squeaky mouse.
´SILENCE,´ Professor McGonagall suddenly appeared with her wand raised. It didn’t change anything. The sound just kept going. The panic was complete.
´Thank you, I think this is enough´, Neville thought to himself. Neville, who had been lying there during the commotion, was quite liking the idea that he was the only one who could stop the Diligits Fortemus from screaming.
´Of course my dear Neville,´ the plant answered and the excruciating sound disappeared as quickly as it started.
The common room was soaring with sound, everybody talked and asked each other what had happened.
‘Neville, please get yourself up from the floor before you get trampled on in all this commotion,´ Professor McGonagall stated briskly.
Neville, who still couldn’t move a muscle, just lay there. He tried to communicate to Professor McGonagall what had happened, and it seemed to work. She quickly un-petrified him, and he slowly made his arms and legs move. It was really painful. He felt like Great-Uncle Algie looked leaving the Christmas dinner table.
´Thank you, Professor,´ Neville said, his voice sounded strange after silently screaming for so long.
´Who petrified you, Mr. Longbottom,´ Professor McGonagall wanted to know. She stared at him with such piercing eyes he did not dare to lie.
´Hermione, Professor´ stuttered Neville.
´Why in the heavens would she do such a thing?´ she asked, sounding more astonished than angry. She looked like she almost didn’t believe him.
´They were going out,´ Neville said sniffling, trying not to tell her more than he had to.
´They?´ Professor McGonagall asked with a stern look. ´Who, exactly, are they?´
´Ehh…Ron and Harry too,´ Neville, realizing that they would probably never talk to him again so he might as well tell her the truth ´They apologized and said it was important, something about saving the Stone?´ Neville didn’t want to tell the Professor that they actually said nothing of the kind, but his darling plant had overheard them when they left and told him while he was talking to the professor.
´How long ago?´ McGonagall looked both angry and scared at the same time ´When?´ she asked sharply when he didn’t answer immediately.
´At sundown,´ he mumbled, staring at his feet.
´Percy, make sure all students stay in the dorms until I say so,´ Professor McGonagall hurried out of the fat ladies portrait without even waiting for an answer.
Neville knew he had a lot to answer for, but right now he was just happy. He had an important secret that was only his. He couldn’t wait to see what adventure awaited them….
Drawing: Ann-Kathrin Mai and Jessica Ljung
Photo: Jessica Ljung
Meaning of:
Diligits Fortemus= Fortem (Brave) and Diligitis (Love)
Magicus Flosbology for advanced learners by Fyllida Spors.
Magicis=magic and Flos discite=learning of flowers, combined with Herbology, became the combo Magicus Flosbology.
This book is merely a fiction of limited imagination and the esteemed Fyllida Spors (real author of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi) should in no shape or form be held responsible for this book.
Nevilles nickname for the plant= “Rosictus” is a comibination of the following; rosie=rose, ictus=stings (latin)
Literary Longbottoms 