'And - oh, Mrs Longbottom, are you leaving already?'
Harry's head spun round. The curtains had been drawn back from the two beds at the end
of the ward and two visitors were walking back from the aisle between the beds:
a formidable-looking old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a
pointed hat decorated with what was unmistakeably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her
looking thoroughly depressed - Neville.
With a sudden rush of understanding, Harry realised who the people in the end beds must be.
He cast around wildly for some means of distracting the others so that Neville
could leave the ward unnoticed and unquestioned, but Ron had also looked up at the
sound of the name 'Longbottom', and before Harry could stop him had called out,
'Neville!'
Neville jumped and cowered as though a bullet had narrowly missed him.
'It's us, Neville!' said Ron brightly, getting to his feet. 'Have you seen -? Lockhart's here!
Who've you been visiting?
'Friends of yours, Neville, dear?' said Neville's grandmother graciously, bearing down upon them all.
Neville looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here.
A dull purple flush was creeping up his plump face
and he was not making eye contact with any of them.
'Ah, yes' said his grandmother, peering at Harry and sticking out a shrivelled, clawlike hand for him to shake. 'Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of you.'
'Er - thanks,' said Harry, shaking hands. Neville did not look at him, but stared at his own feet,
the colour deeping in his face all the while.
(...)
'Highly gifted the pair of them. I - yes Alice dear, what is it?'
Neville's mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress. She no longer had the plump, happy-looking face Harry had seen in Moody's old photograph of the original Order of the Phoenix.
Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes seemed overlarge and her hair, which had
turned white, was wispy and dead-looking. She did not seem to want to speak,
or perhaps she was not able to, but she made timid motions towards Neville,
holding something in her outstretched hand.
'Again?' said Mrs Longbottom, sounding slightly weary. 'Very well, Alice dear, very well - Neville, take it, whatever it is.'
But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped
an empty Droole's Best Blowing Gum wrapper.
'Very nice, dear' said Neville's grandmother in a falsely cheery voice,
patting his mother on the shoulder.
But Neville said quietly, 'Thanks, Mum.'
His mother tottered away, back up the ward, humming to herself. Neville looked around at
the others, his expression defiant, as though daring them to laugh,
but Harry did not think he'd ever found anything less funny in his life.
'Well, we'd better get back,' sighed Mrs Longbottom,
drawing on long green gloves. 'Very nice to have met you all. Neville put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of them to paper your bedroom by now.
But as they left, Harry was sure he saw Neville slip the sweet wrapper into his pocket.
HP5 -- CHRISTMAS ON THE CLOSED WARD
+ An interview for MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron wiiith Jo Rowling herself :D