Harry Potter: Another Chance

Chapter 32: Halloween

Disclaimer: 
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
 
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
$Parseltongue$
 
Chapter 32: Halloween

Oct 31, Halloween night

The great hall was filled with people celebrating the feast. All eating, drinking and laughing, for this was a joyous night, for most.

Harry was slowly picking at his food with conflicted feelings. He has always hated Halloween, it was the night his parents had been murdered and if that was not reason enough, something bad tended to happen always on this night, as if a curse had been placed over this particular festivity.

But now, things were different. Both his parents were alive and he even had two younger sisters. He did not feel sad or lonely and that made him feel guilty.

Was he being disrespectful to his original parents, the ones who gave up their lives for him if he enjoyed his time with his new family? They were the same persons, or at least, different versions of the same persons after all.
He was not sure and could only hope that time will help in that matter. But now he had another concern.

His eyes moved to the right and focused on the entrance doors of the great halls. They had been shut tight before the feast started, but Harry noticed that there was one person missing.

He now looked at the teacher's table as if to confirm it. But there were no doubts about it. The new defense professor, Keshav Nayar, was missing from the party.

This was a familiar situation and for a moment, Harry wondered if the professor was about to stumble into the Great Hall while yelling about trolls wandering the dungeon.
'No, that's a stupid thought, this is not even the same professor…'

"He looks so sad…" The voice of Hermione reached his ears.

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Harry did not need to ask who she was talking about as this was the third time she made the same comment tonight.

He looked at Neville. The boy was looking down and did not even touch his place, he was indeed looking sad. 
That was not really surprising. After the infamous game, most of the Gryffindor house had turned against him in ways that Harry was very familiar with as it had happened to him several times.

On the bright side, there were even more people now who believed that Neville had some incredible magical powers hidden inside him after the wind spell that saved his life.

That may be the reason why his 'punishment' has been limited to verbal slurs and no one has tried to raise their wand against him, lest his magic acts on its own to defend him and they find themselves plastered against one of the many walls of the castle.

Even Malfoy had not dared to do much, other than some very unimaginative taunts here and there.

But Harry knew that there was one thing more important on Neville's mind at the moment. Like in his own past, today was the anniversary of his parent's deads.

'Is like the same story but with a different main character.' Harry thought.

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In the end, Professor Nayar never appeared, the doors were not opened by anyone calling for some emergency and the party ended with no issues.
Something that Harry was not accustomed to. He even allowed himself the thought that he may experience an entire school year at Hogwarts with no serious incidents, other than Neville almost dying twice, but that could still count as a normal year.

A strong wave of cold wind hit Harry in the face as he was ascending the stairs and he decided to cast a warming charm on himself.

"Much better." He said with relief. 
It was still early in the morning so he was not expecting to find anyone in the owl tower. 

"There you go, I got you some bacon." 

Harry heard a boy speaking before he passed by the door frame.

His eyes opened wide when he saw it.

Neville was sitting on a wooden bench, feeding a pure white owl.

'Hedwig...'

"That's a beautiful owl."

Neville was startled by the sudden appearance of someone else. Like Harry, he was not expecting to find anyone else this early in the morning after last night's party.

"Harry?" 

"Sorry for startling you." He apologized.

"It's okay…I was just a bit distracted." Neville gave her another treat and the owl happily ate it. 

"What's her name?" Harry said while pointing at the owl.

"You can tell is female?." Neville looked at them with a hint of admiration.
"I couldn't tell at all when I first bought her. But then I tried to name her Trevor and she…auch!" 
The owl had pinched his hand.
"She reacted like that!"

"Trevor?" Wasn't that the name of his frog or something? He seems to recall.

"Yes…that was the name of my frog…" Neville made a sad expression.

"What happened to him?"

Neville sighed.
"It was last year when I had finally convinced my gran to take me to Diagon Alley to buy some plants…the truth is I just wanted to go out for a bit, you see…my family doesn't let me go out very often. They say is not safe."

'It really isn't safe…' Harry agreed.

"Anyways, we were at this shop and someone recognized me for my scar. That person started to scream my name and just a few minutes later, I was surrounded by people, all talking to me at the same time while my gran was yelling at them to leave."

He looked down at his hands.
"I had Trevor on my hands but he must have gotten nervous with all the noise because he jumped out and landed on the floor. The people at the shop did not seem to realize and they kept trying to get closer to me. I tried to tell them to be careful, that my frog was on the floor but they didn't seem to hear me and just keep asking questions… before I could do anything, someone stepped on Trevor. I yelled at them to stop but they were all yelling and pushing at each other…and kept stepping on him…poor Trevor, I could not save him."

"Wow…sorry Nev." Harry placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks... I wasn't allowed back on Diagon Alley after that. Not until it was time to get my wand."

"So, in the end. What did you call her?" Harry looked at the owl.

Neville smiled.
"I was first going to call her Petunia."

Harry gasped.

"The flowers come in different colors but the white ones are my favorite ones...she didn't like that name either for some reason," Neville said while looking at the old.
"In the end, I went with Snow. Is boring, I know but she seems to like it at least." Neville petted the owl and this one gave a happy noise.

'Thank Merlin...' Harry felt a great relief wash over him.