Hermione looked rather startled that Mrs. Longbottom knew her name, but shook hands all the same.

“Yes, Neville’s told me all about you. Helped him out of a few sticky spots, haven’t you? He’s a good boy,” she said, casting a sternly appraising look down her rather bony nose at Neville, “but he hasn’t got his father’s talent, I’m afraid to say.” And she jerked her head in the direction of the two beds at the end of the ward, so that the stuffed vulture on her hat trembled alarmingly.

“What?” said Ron, looking amazed. (Harry wanted to stamp on Ron’s foot, but that sort of thing is much harder to bring off unnoticed when you’re wearing jeans rather than robes.) “Is that your dad down the end, Neville?”

“What’s this?” said Mrs. Longbottom sharply. “Haven’t you told your friends about your parents, Neville?”

Neville took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Harry could not remember ever feeling sorrier for anyone, but he could not think of any way of helping Neville out of the situation.

“Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of!” said Mrs. Longbottom angrily. “You should be proud, Neville, proud! They didn’t give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!”

“I’m not ashamed,” said Neville, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at Harry and the others. Ron was now standing on tiptoe to look over at the inhabitants of the two beds.

“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it!” said Mrs. Longbottom. “My son and his wife,” she said, turning haughtily to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny, “were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who’s followers.”

Hermione and Ginny both clapped their hands over their mouths. Ron stopped craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Neville’s parents and looked mortified.

“They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the wizarding community,” Mrs. Longbottom went on. “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.”

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Agnes gave several loud barks.	\|	But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum wrapper.

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