Neville's third year was like Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class: full of anticipation at first, then unbearable later on.
After Malfoy was injured, Hagrid became excessively cautious. He had the children care for Blast-Ended Skrewts or caterpillars for an entire year, and barring any surprises, that would be on the final exam too.
During second year, because of the Basilisk incident, Pomona had been busy cultivating Mandrakes and completely forgot to pay attention to Neville. Even after he fainted from hearing a Mandrake's scream, she merely had him carried to the prep room to sleep, rather than sending him to the Hospital Wing as Hagrid had done for Draco Malfoy.
She had overlooked him, just like everyone else. By the time she noticed the boy who had also been born at the end of July, he no longer seemed like a Leo boy. He lacked confidence, always lowered his head when he spoke, and acted cautiously, afraid he would do something wrong again.
Neville had first offended the head of Slytherin at the start of term in Defense Against the Dark Arts, then nearly let Black sneak into the common room by accidentally revealing the password. But unlike Hermione, who always earned points for the house, and Harry Potter, who could find the Golden Snitch in Quidditch matches, Neville, at the bottom of the "food chain," suffered an invisible kind of exclusion.
He had not done it on purpose. His memory was poor, which was why he had written the password on a slip of paper.
But his classmates were not Draco's parents. Mrs. Malfoy believed her son had done nothing wrong; Buckbeak was entirely to blame, even though she had known all along that it would put Draco in danger and had still sent it to Hogwarts. Yet