3 March 1992, Hogwarts
Neville Longbottom hated Harry Potter. Everyone knew that, especially his friends. Ron didn't understand it but accepted it because he was a Slytherin. Hermione really disapproved of it, especially considering how Potter rarely provoked him.
Even Neville didn't really understand it at first. When he met Ron in the Hogwarts Express, they became fast friends. They just clicked together. Well, Neville might have latched into him a little, when he rarely interacted with people his age before.
His grandmother, Augusta, had practically locked him away in a mansion for all his life, allowing only his family members to visit. After losing her son and her daughter-in-law, she was desperate in protecting her only grandson. The only contact with the outside world he had was with family, like his great-uncle Algie and his wife, who were delighted that House Longbottom had a hero of his calibre and fame, that would be in the annals of history.
Because Neville had destroyed the Dark Lord when he was a baby, they all wondered what he would become when he was fully trained. Greatness was expected of him, and every day, he could see their enthusiasm lessen, as he showed them how normal he really was.
He wasn't a genius, outside of Herbology that is. He is pretty strong for his age, but not that much stronger than his own father, according to his grandmother that is. He wasn't Merlin reborn like everyone expected him to be. Oh, he wasn't a bad student, not at all. He was in the upper bracket in all his classes, and practical magic came easier to him than most. But every day, he could see the hope in his professors' eyes dim slightly, especially with someone like Potter showing him up.
Neville didn't know why he immediately disliked the young Slytherin. He never insulted him, he never hexed him, and he never laughed at Malfoy's jokes. But it was the constant comparison to him that angered him. 'You have trouble with this spell? Potter got it in ten minutes, why can't you?'
It was the same everywhere. Even his grandmother sent him a letter telling him to be more like the young Slytherin. And they were supposed to be brothers in everything but blood. Neville's grandmother had told him tales of the brave James Potter, the fiery Lily Potter who fought alongside his parents against the terrible Dark Lord. They were so close that his mother was Neville's godmother, and Neville's mother was his godmother. If one of them had survived, they would have probably been raised together as brothers. And so, Neville had expected Potter to be the same. To be together in Gryffindor, hang out, and become fearsome fighters against the Dark.
When Potter was sorted into Slytherin of all places, Neville took it as a personal betrayal of his hopes of having a brother, a betrayal of his own family that fought the parents of the people he shared a dormitory with, and a betrayal of everything Neville's parents died for. But he elected to suppress the hurt he felt. He pushed it down, but with every achievement, every congratulation Potter got from the teachers, it kept boiling on and on, until it turned into hatred.
Neville Longbottom hated Harry Potter with all his heart. It didn't help that the other boy was just aloof all the time. He just hung out with his friends in Slytherin but ignored Neville completely. He had to instigate anything to get Potter to react, and it never ended up well for the boy who lived.
He just ignored their bond, their supposed brotherhood, for no reason. He never gave Neville the time of day, and that made Neville want to blow things up. Oh, Neville hated Malfoy, for being the son of a Death Eater, for insulting him and his family, and for using Snape to punish him, but at least he reacted to him. Potter just stays silent, raises an eyebrow or snorts in amusement, and just leaves. Even when Neville had told him about their relation, Potter just didn't care. He didn't react at all.
At first, Neville ignored it, he was already busy with finding out who Nicholas Flamel was, and his Quidditch practice. Well, Hermione had ended up finding Flamel in an Alchemy schoolbook of all things, and they had discovered that the third-floor corridor was hiding the Philosopher's Stone, an artefact capable of creating endless riches and providing an elixir of immortality.
And well, Quidditch was a lost cause with Snape being the referee. Their hopes were on Neville finding the snitch early, and that simply hadn't happened. He didn't have a stroke of luck like in the Slytherin match and accidentally swallow the snitch. Diggory was the one who ended up catching the snitch, in a match that absolutely destroyed Gryffindor's chances at winning the Quidditch Cup.
That resulted in Neville just being angry all the time. Wood stopped their endless training sessions, and the mystery of the forbidden corridor was solved. He, soon, found something else to preoccupy himself with. Hagrid had hatched a Dragon, and Neville took it upon himself to sneak the fire-breathing reptile to a dragon reserve in Bulgaria where Charlie, Ron's brother, worked at. Unfortunately, Malfoy ended up finding out about the entire thing and told them to McGonagall.
Yeah, being discovered doing something that could land the average wizard a stay in Azkaban was not a good idea. Dumbledore was able to send the Dragon to the reserve and fixed the situation, but they were all given detention every day until the end of the year. And worst of all, they called their guardians. Hermione was in tears after a letter from her parents came through, and Ron's mother had shaken the castle yelling at him. Neville's grandmother on the other hand just gave him a disappointed look and told him that his parents would have been ashamed of him. She even threatened to take him out of Hogwarts and get him taught privately in their mansion.
He tried to do the right thing. Why couldn't they all see it? He tried to save a friend, and no one would have gotten hurt if it wasn't for Malfoy. It wasn't his fault, and that was the last straw. Neville was angry. Hogwarts slowly stopped feeling like home and more like a prison. And with all that rage inside of him, he chose to take it out on the Slytherins. They were acceptable targets, right? Well, not according to Hermione, who practically stopped talking to him altogether.
He tried to corner Potter multiple times, but he would just not respond. He would ignore him and his friends, and it was driving him insane. He kept going at it, again and again, until Potter finally retaliated, which landed them in this hellish detention.
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