"I don't know, but that doesn't look good at all for the Gryffindor Quidditch team." Said Morag, as they passed most of the Gryffindor horde Longbottom was always dragging along in his trail. Most were the same giggling girls following the Boy-Who-Lived everywhere they could. Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Thelma Holmes, Fay Dunbar to list just the second-year Lions. In the rear of the crowd, however, Alexandra watched a young red-haired girl looking at the Golden trio with attention and an emotion on her face which looked like jealousy, before she disappeared in the mass of students.
Coming back to the discussion which had now the Potions homework the Ravenclaw and the Hufflepuff had received on the morning, Alexandra tried to dismiss the bad vibes she had felt in the corridor. Malfoy acting weirdly, fan-girls to the pursuit of Neville Longbottom...why did life at Hogwarts feel like an organised chaos?
17th October 1992, Hogwarts, Scotland
Ginny Weasley was not furious. She was enraged as hell.
All this week and the previous ones, the only girl of the new Weasley generation had tried to attract the Boy-Who-Lived attention, whether by speaking about Quidditch in his presence, complimenting him on his looks, denigrating Professor Snape or discussing whatever rumours had spread into the castle this week. And for exactly what? Nothing. Nothing! For all her efforts, Neville Longbottom refused to acknowledge her as a person, except once where he had called her "Ron's little sister". By Morgana she wasn't even sure he knew her real name!
Crumpling in her bed of the Gryffindor girl rooms, Ginny fumed in anger. Her mother had insisted over and over she had to conquer the Boy-Who-Lived for herself thorough her childhood, giving her all the collection of books bearing the same name, constantly repeating how Neville Longbottom was brave, gallant, the perfect pure-blood heir gracing Hogwarts from his presence. With her older brother Ron making a friendship with Neville last year, the Weasley matriarch had stepped up her efforts, berating Ginny when participated in any other activity than cooking and doing the chores. Ginny had always been forbidden to play on the family broomsticks, not that it had hampered her as she regularly flew on her brother's broom on the sly, but now anything her mother deemed 'un-girly' was prohibited.
The reality had been far less rosy once they went to Diagon Alley. With her hand-down robes too great for her, a cauldron so rusted and counting dents by the dozens, Neville Longbottom had not demanded her in marriage the first time he had seen her. He had looked at her, and then looked elsewhere. And why wouldn't he? Ginny was poor. Ginny had nothing compared to girls like Lavender Brown or Parvati Patil, who were wearing brand-new robes, bought expensive perfumes or shampoos or spent hours in every shop of Diagon Alley. The last child of the Weasley family, on the other hand, had not been able to buy her own magical wand at Mr Ollivander shop. She was currently using her paternal grandmother's, thirteen inches of cedar wood and a core of dragon heartstring. It worked alright, but something was amiss, a sensation signifying the wand was not hers. As she had not a Sickle to spare, never mind the few Galleons a new wand would require, it would have to do.
Ginny breathed louder on her bed. She had known her parents were poor, but the reality had still struck her hard. Even the only girl she knew from her childhood, Luna Lovegood, had had the money to buy normal robes. Not Ginny. No girl in Gryffindor had told her anything directly the night of her Sorting or the days after, but she had seen the looks of pity, the whispers in the hall. It had been one more disillusionment after the rest passed this point. Neville Longbottom, the Boy-Who-Lived and the leader of the Golden trio of Gryffindor, was not the perfect Prince she had dreamt of. Ginny had imagined a popular boy, calm and gentle, helping his fellow housemates to finish their homework, playing a prank or two and humble about his fame. This vision had rapidly been shattered. Neville Longbottom was popular all right, but he had nothing peaceful in him. His hobby was playing cruel pranks on unsuspecting Slytherin and whoever had irritated him during the week. Helping someone with homework could not be further down his preoccupations. Merlin's beard, doing his own homework was a point not figuring in his top hundred list of things to do for the week!
But with this realisation had come something worse: fear. Ginny was in good terms with the rest of the girls in her year, particularly Jade Angela and Rosalyn Ewhirst. But she had not missed the looks which came with those who were prompt to criticise the Boy-Who-Lived in third-year and below. The second-years Hermione Granger and Nigel Wolpert had literally been driven out of the House because they didn't take Neville's word as a rule, and were now openly mocked as "the Exiled". The two Lions were now only passing time in Gryffindor Tower after curfew, and even then they were isolated, surrounded by distrustful looks. Professor McGonagall was never here to remedy to the situation, and the Prefects never said anything against the Boy-Who-Lived. Ginny didn't want to become an exile like Granger and Wolpert, though sometimes she burnt to denounce their tormentors of the Golden Trio as bullies and petty tyrants, and yes it included her brother Ron.
-----+------
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/Makimafic
If you guys wanna check it out.