I Was Once As You Are Now

[starfishstar]

Fandom: Harry Potter

Summary: Neville Longbottom, now settled into life as a Hogwarts professor, finds unexpected parallels between his younger self and his present-day student Teddy Lupin.

Characters: Neville Longbottom, Teddy Lupin

Words: 3,000

Notes: This is the final fic in the More Than This World Can Contain series. Thank you to emily_in_the_glass for such thoughtful beta work on this whole series.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Neville was up to his elbows in potting soil, helping some of his third-year students to replant their puffapods in the final minutes before the day’s lesson ended.

On one side of him sat Emma Rosen, edged in close and watching anxiously as Neville tucked a puffapod’s roots into fresh soil. Emma was the most timid in the class and always needed reassurance that she had done one step correctly before she dared to attempt the next one. Neville often invited her to sit beside him when he conducted demonstrations.

On Neville’s other side, Cassandra Johnson bobbed up and down in her seat, an endless fount of questions who reminded him of nothing so much as a young Hermione Granger: Why this type of soil and not that one, and did puffapods like acidic or basic soil more, and were there other plants that preferred it the other way round?

Neville had just answered the last of these questions to Cassandra’s satisfaction, when he heard a voice rise above the general chatter in Greenhouse Three in a wail: “I can’t do it!”

Scanning the room for the source of that despairing voice, Neville’s gaze found Teddy Lupin, sitting with several friends at the far end of the classroom. Teddy’s hair was a spiky aquamarine today, and his usually cheerful face was pinched with distress as he stared at the puffapod in front of him.

From all Neville heard in the staff room, Teddy Lupin was simply one of those children who excelled at everything. In these two-and-a-bit years of having him as a student, Neville sometimes caught himself thinking of the boy almost as if he were another Harry: an orphan, yes, and as Neville knew too well, there was no sweeping away that heartbreak. But Teddy moved through Hogwarts much as Harry had once done: beloved of many, excelling effortlessly, winning friends and followers wherever he went. A golden child, touched by tragedy but also graced with persistent good fortune.

Still, any child might have an off-kilter moment that required a little attention to bring right again. Neville called across the greenhouse, “Stay after class for a few minutes, Lupin, before you go to lunch, and I’m sure we can sort it out.”

He saw Teddy’s mouth move in an affirmative reply, although the hubbub of the room drowned out the words. The rest of the class were now packing up their bags and jostling towards the door, then spilling out onto the wide lawn that separated the greenhouses from the castle. They formed an energetic pack of third-years, all of them eager for a glimpse of winter sun, and even more eager for the meal that awaited them in the Great Hall.

As the greenhouse emptied, Neville made his way across to Teddy, who sat forlornly on one of the long benches, staring down at a very drab puffapod on the table in front of him.

Teddy Lupin at thirteen somehow managed to be the very image of both his father and his mother, with his lanky limbs and his heart-shaped face. Even after these two-and-a-bit years, it still startled Neville each time he saw Remus Lupin’s thoughtful eyes looking out from Nymphadora Tonks’ cheerful face.

Teddy wasn’t his usual cheerful self at the moment, though. Neville sat down beside the dejected boy and his equally dismal-looking puffapod, and reached out to give the bulbous plant a soft pat. It quivered minutely, then sat still.

Neville loved the third year curriculum. Third year was when the students had learned enough of the basics that they could move beyond the simplest and most harmless plants, and begin to explore the more interesting species. Every year it delighted him all over again to watch their curiosity unfold. But third year was also when frustration could begin to rear its head, for the same reason: everything was no longer simple.

“What seems to be the matter?” he asked.

Teddy heaved a sigh and said, “My puffapod isn’t growing the way it’s supposed to, the way everybody else’s is. I don’t get it, ‘cause it should be easy. It’s not like – like – Arithmancy or something.” Then he glanced sideways at Neville and said, “Er, sorry, professor. I didn’t mean that Herbology isn’t, er, important, or…”

He trailed off, evidently afraid of making his comment worse.

But Neville was unoffended. He knew perfectly well that most people thought of Herbology as an uncomplicated field of study, even a bit of a fluff subject – until they actually got into the nitty-gritty of it. Herbology was similar to Potions in its deceptive simplicity, although Potions generally got a lot more prestige. But in both cases, there was more to it than merely dumping ingredients into a cauldron or sticking a plant into dirt.

To Teddy, Neville said, “I know it seems like it should be easy, but clearly at the moment it’s proving difficult. So, what do you think it is that’s not working right now?”

“I don’t know,” Teddy said, his brow furrowing as he stared at his plant. The puzzle aspect of the problem clearly appealed to him, despite his current frustration. “I’ve planted it the way you said, and I’ve watered it the way you said. But everybody else’s is already turning pink and growing pods, and mine is still…” He gestured at the sad brown-ish plant in front of him.

“Hm,” Neville agreed, reaching out again to stroke the puffapod. Again it shivered, the plant version of a sigh. “What else have you done for it?”

“What else have I –?” Teddy looked nonplussed.

Neville gave the plant a last little pat, then turned his full attention to Teddy. “Do you remember, when we first started the unit on puffapods, we talked about how they also need attention in order to grow well?”

Teddy nodded. “Yeah. But I thought that meant, you know, make sure they have enough water and light and stuff. Plant things. Right?”

“Those are important, certainly,” Neville agreed. He ticked them off on his fingers: “Water, nutrients, sunlight. The right temperature. The right atmosphere. Aside from a few exceptions, all plants need each of those things in order to grow. But some plants have their own little quirks, things they need that go beyond the basics. Puffapods are one of those species that need a bit more.”

“I just don’t understand why it isn’t working,” Teddy muttered, staring fixedly at the plant. Clearly he took its failure to thrive personally. “I thought I was doing everything right.”

Neville hadn’t meant to expand this impromptu tutorial beyond the particulars of puffapod care, yet he found himself asking, “Has anyone ever told you that you don’t need to be good at everything?”

Teddy’s face scrunched up in confusion. No, clearly he had not been told that.

Gently, Neville said, “You’re doing fine at Herbology, Teddy, and I’m confident that your puffapod is going to be fine as well, once we get things sorted here. But you’re an intelligent, kind person who’s good at a great number of things already. Even if you were terrible at Herbology, it would be all right. A person doesn’t need to be equally good at everything they do. It seems to me that that’s a very important life thing to know, yet so many of us go through life without anyone ever thinking to tell us.”

“My –” Teddy’s eyes, usually so confident and eager, dropped to where his hands fidgeted with one of the cuffs of his robes. “My mum was really good at Herbology. I know it’s stupid, thinking I would be good at it just because she was, but…”

Neville knew the feeling behind that trailing sentence. He knew what it was to be left bereft of heroic but unknowable parents, whose reputations cast long shadows a child could despair of ever filling. Neville’s dad, for example, had been brilliant at Potions. And that knowledge had only made it that much worse every time Professor Snape sneered.

Neville leaned back on the bench and agreed, “I’m not surprised your mum was good at Herbology. She was brilliant at a lot of things – that’s how she became an Auror, after all. But your mum isn’t the one sitting in front of me right now. The person I want to know about is Teddy Lupin. I’m interested in all the things he’s good at, and all the potential he has for things he might not even know about yet.”

Neville himself had spent years not believing potential of any sort existed inside him. Yet a select few of his teachers had somehow seen it. Teachers like Pomona Sprout. Or Remus Lupin.

Professor Lupin, who’d looked at timid, bumbling Neville Longbottom, seen and understood his fears, but believed he could accomplish things anyway.

Teddy managed an awkward, self-deprecating laugh. “Whatever my potential is, professor, I don’t think it’s going to be anything to do with Herbology.”

“Well, let’s see about that.” Neville slid the puffapod pot closer for inspection.

The plant was smaller than the average puffapod, but solidly built and with a nice, sleek surface, albeit one that was currently an unhappy shade of brown. Aside from its drab colouring, there was nothing visibly wrong with this plant that should prevent it from flowering.

Neville turned from the plant to Teddy. “The first failure here is mine, because I realise now that I wasn’t detailed enough in my instructions at the start. Puffapods do need the usual things that plants need, like sunlight and water, but they also thrive on attention. They love to be part of the life going on around them. For most puffapods, simply exposing them to a happy bustle of people talking and doing things – such as we have here in this classroom – is enough. Or perhaps stroking the plant now and then, or talking to it.”

He gave the plant another small pat, by way of demonstration.

Teddy watched this with scepticism. “I did that – sorry, professor, not to be rude, but I did all that. I followed the instructions, talked to it, everything you said to do.”

With his fingers, Neville gently probed the puffapod’s surface, seeking out the spots where seedpods seemed most likely to grow. “Each plant is different. They’re like people that way. Sometimes it takes a little more work to figure out exactly what an individual one needs. Some puffapods like singing – perhaps we could try that?”

Though Teddy looked startled by this suggestion, he gamely asked, “I should…sing to it?”

“I can’t make any promises,” Neville warned, “but it’s one thing we could try. And if that doesn’t help, we’ll simply try something else.”

Needing no further prompting, Teddy leaned in close, his nose nearly touching the plant’s smooth surface, and launched into the first verse of an old nursery rhyme. It was a song Neville knew well. His grandmother had sung this to him, in her gravelly yet somehow captivating contralto, in the earliest years of his childhood. Those evenings lulled to sleep by her songs had been some of the only times when his grandmother’s imposing public persona had fallen away, and she’d seemed merely human. Teddy sang the song now, in his clear and still childlike voice:

“Ride a hippogriff to market,
Bow and kneel, bow and kneel,
Ride a hippogriff to market,
Chestnuts and cheese by the wheel.”

The puffapod gave a small shudder. Then, as they watched, a very small pink pod extruded ponderously from one side of the bulbous shape. Teddy turned to Neville with wonder all over his face. “It worked. That really worked!”

“Try a bit more,” Neville suggested.

So Teddy sang:

“Ride a hippogriff to market,
Bow and kneel, bow and kneel,
Ride a hippogriff to market,
Ribbons and moonberry peel.”

The puffapod shivered all over, blushed a faint pink, and sent out two more seedpods with matching little pops.

Teddy was flushed with excitement, nearly bouncing in his seat. “That was amazing!”

Looking confident now, Teddy took up the song again with gusto, patting the surface of the plant gently in time with the rhythm as he belted out the remaining verses.

Once the puffapod had produced a few more pods, Teddy sat back, glowing with accomplishment. He turned to Neville and commented, “My gran used to sing me that song when I was little. It’s super weird that a plant would like it…but also kind of cool. You know?”

Yes, Neville very much did know. Plants were weird and wonderful.

To Teddy, he said, “Every living thing needs a little encouragement to survive. Some plants might like singing. Some will want something else entirely, and you’ll have to start all over from the beginning to figure out what it is. But it can be a rewarding puzzle, if you’re willing to take it on.”

“Yeah, I can see that now,” Teddy enthused. “I can’t believe I used to think –” He broke off, but Neville suspected the intended end of that sentence had been something along the lines of: I used to think Herbology was boring.

Neville still wasn’t offended. He was well aware that most people thought Herbology was boring. But it was Neville’s private belief that this was very much their loss.

“As for your mum and dad,” Neville began gently. Teddy’s gaze, which had wandered to the puffapod, snapped back to Neville. “You know that no one expects you to be an exact copy of either of them, right?”

Teddy shifted on the bench. “Yeah…I know that. I mean, I think I do. But they were so…they were both so good at everything, you know? Mum was a great Auror, and Dad was this amazing teacher, everybody always says he was their favourite, and they were both really good duellists, and they were in the war and in the Order of the Phoenix, and they – you know –”

Neville mentally supplied the rest: They gave their lives fighting Voldemort, the greatest sacrifice anyone could make.

Reaching out one finger to test out the smooth underside of one of the puffapod’s new pods, he told Teddy, “Both of my parents were Aurors, too. They were in the Order of the Phoenix and they fought in the First War. They didn’t get killed, but they ended up permanently incapacitated, so I never really knew them. I spent my Hogwarts years thinking I would never live up to their legacy.”

“But – ” Teddy’s eyes had gone round with wonder. “But you’re a war hero. You led Dumbledore’s Army. You killed Nagini.”

All of this was true. To his own permanent bafflement, Neville had somehow ended up the stuff of living legend.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I did those things. But before all that, I was an awkward, clumsy boy who was bad at almost everything, and worried all the time that I was letting my brilliant parents down. Those two things can be parts of the same person.”

Teddy’s puffapod was now glowing a soft pink and humming faintly to itself. Teddy leaned in closer to listen, then turned to Neville with a grin when he recognised the tune. Though it was nearly too quiet to hear, the puffapod’s melody seemed to be a faint echo of the hippogriff nursery rhyme.

Neville returned the smile and told Teddy, “Your parents were war heroes. But they were also good people, clever and hard-working, and they were kind to their friends. As far as I can tell, Teddy Lupin is all of those things as well. So I suppose all I’m saying is, give him some time. Teddy Lupin will surprise us yet, whether it’s in Herbology or something we haven’t even thought of yet.”

Teddy blinked, looking pleased and embarrassed. “Thanks, professor,” he mumbled.

“At any rate,” Neville added, “you were here for help with your puffapod, and we’ve certainly helped your puffapod. What do you think?” He slid the plant pot over so it was directly in front of Teddy, for him to observe.

“I think this has been amazing!” Teddy enthused. “I’m going to sing to it again tomorrow. And maybe I’ll read it some comics. Do you think a puffapod would like The Hilarious Adventures of Hilde the Hippogriff?”

“I think it sounds eminently worth a try,” Neville said, with a smile for his now-eager student. “And I think you’re going about this the right way, thinking up many different kinds of attention you could try out for your puffapod.” Neville swept his hand across the table, clearing away a few stray particles of potting soil, then lightly touched the rim of the puffapod’s pot. “But for now, why don’t you go ahead to lunch. Put your puffapod on the shelf with the others, and tomorrow we’ll go on learning about all the things it likes.”

“Okay!” Teddy bounced up from the bench and lifted the puffapod, cradling it carefully in one arm. With the other hand he gave it an affectionate pat, then made his way across the greenhouse to settle the plant carefully on the shelf with those of the other third-years. Neville could see Teddy murmuring to the plant, a grin lighting up his face. When he came back to fetch his school bag from beneath the table, Teddy said, “Thanks, professor. This was really cool.”

“My pleasure,” Neville said, standing up from the bench as well.

Teddy bounded out the door of the greenhouse, evidently restored to his cheerful self. Neville watched him lope across the grounds at nearly a run, heading towards the castle and lunch and his waiting friends, ready to be swept back up into all the perfectly normal, perfectly wonderful little moments that made up a Hogwarts life.

Here was a boy who was the spitting image of both Remus and Tonks, who was in personality a bit like Harry and perhaps even a bit like Neville himself, but above and beyond all those weighty legacies: a boy who was simply himself.

Neville smiled to himself and thought, Teddy Lupin is going to be just fine.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


End notes:

Ah, so much love I have for Neville! The main other thing I’ve written about Neville is a sketch of his seventh year at Hogwarts, structured around each of the people who matter most to him: Neville Longbottom and the Year That Was. He also makes appearances in my Ginny-centric story Chambers, and has his spot in Twenty Years On.

And Teddy, of course… He’s a major player in Saying Yes, That Great Unseen Good Man, and Waiting for the Snow, and he’s in Twenty Years On, as well as If You’ve Got a Lantern Hold It High. And of course mentions of him abound in my Remus/Tonks stories.

.