In Harry Potter as Neville Longbottom

Chapter 17: Christmas and Back to Hogwarts

Today Longbottom manor was very lively in the morning. It was Christmas and as such, Neville decided to suspend all activities and focused on his family alone. When he checked the Christmas tree where Winny kept all the gifts that came for him, he was slightly happy to see that at least the numbers added up to double digits.

Out of the 11 gifts he received, the twins had gifted him strange candies made up of different strange flavours, a few girls in class had gifted him some small handwritten cards with chocolate candies and cards and Dean gave him a big collection of storybooks while Seamus gave him a stylish pair of shoes. Also, there was a gift from Hermione which was her written notes in Potions class and a small chocolate box from Pansy. A gift from Pansy was really a surprise.

Clearly, the book master thought this might help Nev clear the year-end exams as he never attended any potions class and Pansy tried to thank him for their little troll adventure. All in all, small but cute and thoughtful gifts. Anyway, he wrote several thank you letters to everyone and sent them away via owls.

In the evening, he had dinner with his whole family and he could see his Nan smiling and enjoying this peaceful atmosphere. The whole family is in a much better state compared to the last 10 years. A truly beautiful Christmas.

Soon, the rest of the days passed practising his occlumency skills and wand magic. His wand started to resonate with him much better now thanks to the advice of his Nan. In her words "Wands are our partners and they can feel the emotions of a wizard. So treat it as a friend rather than a helper or a tool!" This made him understand a key point in his wand magic. He never really treated his wand with much respect and always commanded it like a tool but never accepted it as a partner.

Once he crossed this hurdle, the wand started behaving more naturally and the flow of magic became more natural and fluid. His occlumency teacher Ms. Rose checked his progress and gave him good reviews. If he could practise like this then he might become very good by the next year.

Thanks to his magical quills, the homework was done easily. Also, the business across the stores went through a rapid increase thanks to the new pets and quills he designed. The once almost empty vault in Gringotts finally saw new gold coming in large quantities and the figure was frightening.

Don't underestimate the power of cute pets for little wizards during Christmas. And the magical quill was like a lifesaver for all wizards that could help them solve their homework or office work during the festive time.

After the two weeks of break, Nev took the Hogwarts train back to his school and found a seat with Dean and Seamus. They shared their stories and Dean had a lot of things to say.

He went from Dean Thomas to Dean T. Shacklebolt and now inherited his father's family name. His father was the youngest son of the Shacklebolt family. He refused to believe in any pureblood concept and hence left his family. He met Dean's mother who was a muggle, fell in love and finally they got married and had a baby Dean.

But the war came and to protect his wife and kid, he left his new family and fought against Voldemort. He died during the war and the Shacklebolt family lost a lot of family members in this war madness.

His elder brother and the present lord of the Shacklebolt family, Kingsley was over the moon when he found out about Dean. Even though Dean's mother remarried but he still brought Dean and his family to their manor and then Dean stayed with his uncle for a whole week.

Just changing his last name changed his entire future. Now, he had access to huge funds and support from his father's family. Dean's uncle, Kingsley is a famous auror and the name itself commanded huge respect among the wizard families.

Compared to Dean, their Christmas was much less interesting. While they were still talking, Hermione suddenly popped into their cabin and joined their conversations.

"Is this true Dean? You are the son of the Shacklebolt family?" Hermione asked excitedly.

"How did you know this Hermione?" Dean asked him confusingly. Clearly, the new gossip was either printed their papers or had spread in all young wizard circles thanks to their parents.

"Well everyone knows Dean! You know I had studied everything about wizard families. Shacklebolt is a royal family from an African tribe. You have a longer history than most of the magical families. Tell me do you have a huge library or something?" Bushy head kept ongoing and looking at Dean who made helpless faces at us to rescue him, me and Seamus ignored him.

Nope. Girls, especially this one, are definitely not something we can handle in the normal way. After Hermione left, we finally had some peace in our cabin and soon, we reached Hogwarts. Well, no matter what, this castle is definitely a beautiful piece of work.

Our classes resumed and my practice on runes started picking pace. I can make simple and easy runes now and with the help of saps collected from various plants and trees, I was painting various symbols on the paper and when injected with magical power, these symbols will release the charm like a wand.

In the beginning, I felt excited but later on, I was thinking this will make magic rather complicated. Imagine, looking for a particular symbol in a huge book to release a charm and your opponent is already releasing tons of charms via a wand-like machine gun. It was confusing.

"Professor Ravenclaw, I am not getting how this will be effective during any duel? I mean how will I find a particular rune I designed in a book when it will have hundreds of such pages?"I asked the only person who could guide me in ROR once I got this opportunity.

"Well, these are your practice pages, not a real grimoire. A real grimoire acts better than any wand. It is bound to your blood and soul and instead of you looking for pages, you need to show the intent and the pages will turn automatically.

All you need is to put magic power in the book and the pages will turn on their own. Also, after many uses, the pages will blend into other pages and will form new complicated runes. Remember while wands are quasi sentient, a grimoire is half sentient.

When treated with care and respect, a grimoire acts more of a guide for the next generation and it can even interact with its creator. There are legends of grimoires that once fused with the soul of their dying creators giving new life. So, patience little lion. Your journey has just begun and you cannot start running at this stage."

Thankfully, the words from Ms. Ravenclaw gave me a better perspective. No matter what a semi-sentient object is more powerful than any quasi ones. So, I kept spending time in ROR and tried to learn as much as I can. After all, before the annual exams, I had to pass Professor Ravenclaw's test.

During this time, unknown to me, my house elves started working on 18 different crucibles at the same time and the wealth in my vault started going on a strange roller coaster ride. Every time they will buy new ingredients, my wealth will decrease by a huge margin.

I nearly had a heart attack looking at the monthly report from Gringotts.

Merlin Saggy Balls! This potion business surely is only for the rich ones. How the hell did my biggest worry shift from killing Voldemort to making money?!

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