In Harry Potter as Neville Longbottom

Chapter 37: The Gryffindor's Snakes

After Nev's adventure trip, he returned and, the next day, found his Nan sitting outside in the garden area.

"I am back Nan. Tell me, how was my dear Headmaster?"

"Considering all the recent things in the paper Nev, I believe he is still the same old Dumbledore. He might have lost some weight but not his confidence. You have to know Nev, wizards like Dumbledore, have lived a long life and experienced bigger storms than we can imagine.

I guess he is going to quit all his other duties to focus on Hogwarts alone. It might be better in a way."

Listening to his Nan, Nev's mood soured.

'Merlin's saggy balls! This old man is good at politics. It will take more than last year tricks to get him out of Hogwarts. Fuck. I would have to avoid his eyes more next year.'

Collecting his thoughts Nev decided to spend new few days with his family before taking his suitcase to focus on this year's project.

Prepare for The Basilisk

Nev will never allow himself to be caught again unprepared. Fooled once, an accident; fooled twice, only his carelessness. In the first year the unprepared duel with Voldemort, he can blame his circumstances but the same can never be allowed to repeat.

He took the floo passage to visit certain herbology shops that are known to have rare and huge variety of plants. After spending a good amount of gold (and feeling slight pain in his heart) he arranged his garden carefully.

A room with a slightly long passage filled with Devil's Snare and in the end more than few pots of adult mandrakes. Making sure he has enough lighting to keep the devil's snare in relaxed state, he arranged a few more plants carefully in other rooms.

Maybe he would never use these or maybe they will prove invaluable but lately working with plants was more of a relaxation than a chore. Something about plants and animals has changed since the day he got his wand. Nev never noticed it, but he will always have a slight smile on his face during his herbology work.

Then he checked on the pair of eggs he 'borrowed' from the breeder in Egypt. The horned serpent eggs were bigger than Diana's eggs and had a white and blue colour. The Horned Serpent is an amazing creature in itself.

These serpents are very intelligent and can feel the intent of any living person approaching them. They are one of the creatures that rule the water bodies, and, in a sense, they are dragons of water. The most important things are its horn can be used as a wand core and Its jewel is said to grant powers of invisibility and flight, thus making it the most sought-after element of the species.

Cherishing these precious eggs, he went to the other serpents. Yes, for a Gryffindor, he sure had a lot of serpents or serpent family members. First, a dragon then a Horned serpent and now the flying serpents.

More than 15 cute blue-green babies were sleeping in their nest, but they awoke the minute they felt the magical signature of Neville. Every magical being has its own signature and this is the primary way that beasts find their human masters or friends.

Since Nev brought them away from that ruthless monster who ate their parents, they are now safe, well-fed and are now in a peaceful environment. As Nev came closer to their nest, they started making noise.

"Well, it seems I need to learn parseltongue in future to talk to you little guys. For now, fox please come out. He used his wand to bring out his spirit fox that hovered over the small nest and like a mother, it covered these guys under her. Even though it was a completely different species, the little serpents felt a lot of calm and happy emotions from this spirit fox and started talking more.

"Okay, you guys need food. Well, snakes eat rats and frogs. If I was still original Nev, I might feel bad for doing this but since you guys want to eat, I will bring some frogs from the pet store. For now, eat these." Speaking to the small serpents, he put a lot of tiny meat chunks in their nest and all the fifteen young ones started grabbing the meat in an order.

No fight or grabbing from each other but like intelligent beings, one by one in a clockwise way, they grabbed their food and waited patiently for their next turn.

"Smart. Friendly and Family oriented." This was the simple description Nev came up with for these flying snakes. He named them sky snakes as Occamy sounded too stupid.

In this way, he had a dragon, twin horned serpents and fifteen Occamy along with an adult Kneazle.

So, he categorised them as fire snakes, sea snakes and sky snakes. Then it was the wizard cat for Kneazle.

All in all, his small suitcase now had new living members and he was waiting for them to grow up and then he can leave them with Diana. She definitely needed creatures like these that are similar in size to her and can match her strength.

A few days later, he brought his friends Seamus and Dean to his manor after getting their letters. The boys wanted to go crazy with their wands and on holidays, they needed his manor. Nev was more than happy to welcome them, and they spent almost a week before leaving.

Practising his charms and spells with his friends while also guiding them to improve their overall ability made the short stay quite fruitful. The one disappointing development was his Occlumency teacher, Ms Rose Thacher left Britain and joined her family in the US after the reports of the dark lord were printed in papers.

Nev did feel a little bit of guilt, but it was just for a moment. He already was much more proficient in this in the last 2 years and all he needed was to keep up with his daily practice.

The holiday homework which was a scary monster in the past was now easily slain with the help of his own enchanted quills and then he rechecked them once to avoid any silly mistake.

Before the holidays were over, he did learn about Dumbledore resigning from all his posts in the wizarding world and a small apology letter he wrote in the papers. It basically confirmed the rumours that Dumbledore was focused on being a principal only now and he is taking this very seriously.

Another important thing was the sharp criticism of the Aurors and Ministry of Magic in all papers after they failed to capture the wraith of Voldemort or get any news related to it. People were scared that one day the Dark Lord will come alive to destroy their lives and in this current situation and hence demanded the useless minister resign and give up the office.

In the current situation, Rufus Scrimgeour was gaining support and it looked like he will soon replace the useless minister. Rufus had a solid background and a lifetime of experience in dealing with Dark Wizards. His current post was the Head of the Auror Office. Because of his hairstyle and the way, he would deal with dark wizards, he had the nickname of Ruthless Lion.

Not only Aurors but normal wizards, even some from the pureblood families supported him. Not all the pureblood families believed in the purist theory and many of them were neutral. This neutral camp of pureblood families lost a lot of family members and fortune in their last war, and they don't want those days to return.

The Dark Lord Voldemort was not a figure of respect or reverence anymore but of fear and harbinger of death.

"Well, my wings were more of a dragon than a butterfly and the changes seem to confirm that. I guess I will never get a chance to deal with the crazy cart lady. I guess the pink toad was one of the most hated wizards in the series and she was not even a dark one. Imagine that!"

Chuckling and throwing away useless worries, Nev focused on his family and spent quality time with them.

His parents were able to speak some simple words now and it was a huge step in their recovery. Maybe he can never heal them or restore their memory, but they can still be taught as newborn babies, and he had all the time in the world to help them grow once again.

Nev in this way spent most of his time. Taking care of new serpent kids, making friends with a new cat and Yes, perfecting his handwriting.

As Nev finally managed to get his hands on the empty Grimoire book, he realised he would have to draw all the basic runes by hand. This task has to be done via an ordinary brush using the blood and sap mixture of powerful beasts/plants as ink and without using any magic. Yes, a wizard cannot use magic while drawing the runes or else his unfinished rune will activate halfway in some parts destroying the overall design.

To do this, a wizard must have a good command over his quills and his handwriting must be near perfect. Nev would spend more than six hours every day practising this. Thankfully he bought calligraphy pens from Muggle stores to make the process simple and with his daily practice, there was already a slight improvement.

Nev had planned to grab the diary from Ginny in the second year directly from the bookstore but because of his actions, he was not sure if the original story will repeat itself. Anyway, he decided to visit the bookstore in Diagon alley after his Birthday.

Yes, his birthday is coming up and for a lord of a noble house, it is more than just a simple birthday party.

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