Neville

Dearest Grandmother,

Good news! I mean, sorry, forgetting my manners.

I hope this letter finds you in good times and that you are well. The weather's not bad there, is it? Not too chilly, I hope. My pet frog Trevor has not been bothering you so much, has he? I had to leave him there at home during the holidays; he looked ill and I didn't want to make it worse. 

I can't wait to tell you my good news. You know we had this big tournament in school. You must have read about it in the papers, about the coming of two other great wizarding schools here. Of course, my school is way better than they are; it even has two representatives in the tournament, it was that great. There was a big to-do about having the two representatives (because there usually was only one). The other wizarding schools had only one each, so there you go. But then they didn't have Harry in their school.

You remember Harry, don't you, grandmother? He's this guy the same age as me and is in the same house. He's too young to be part of the tournament, but then strange things happened during the selection of the contestants and, lo and behold, he became one of them. Strange things always happened around Harry, you see. So our school had a regular contestant –- an older boy from another house –- plus Harry. Exciting, isn't it? Not to Harry's closest friends, though; they're afraid for him. There are stories of serious injuries in the past tournaments, with some of the contestants almost coming to the brink of death; and Harry IS the youngest contestant in the tournament's history... I would have gladly traded places with him. 

On second thought, no, I wouldn't. Serious injury, brink of death? Now I'm getting apprehensive myself. I'm forgetting to tell you my good news. I'm going to change the subject, OK? 

I danced in a ball! Of course, you already knew that that would happen because we had to buy a formal robe for me before school started. What you didn't know was I would go to this ball with one of the best-looking girls in the school! The ball was part of the big tournament -- so I guess it's not all that bad. Oh, it was so lovely, grandmother! There was dancing and people had beautiful dresses on. I even saw some of the professors dancing. And about my date, she was actually waiting for me to ask her to come to the ball -- this blew my mind, I have to tell you. 

On second thought, she probably was waiting for anyone in the older classes to invite her, since she was only in her sophomore year and she had little chance of going to the ball at all. Whatever the reason, she became my date and I saw many envious stares from everyone all that night. 

And she was not even my first choice! Yes, grandmother, I had more than one girl to choose from. I was going to ask this girl classmate of mine, who was also lovely and was nice to me in class where our professor told us about the forbidden Cruciatus Curse -- that brought up unpleasant memories, it really did. I spent the rest of the day thinking about mom and dad and what that Curse did to them.

Anyway, that classmate of mine already had a date to the ball. So I had to look for another date and she almost fell right into my lap, so to speak. Ginny -- that's the name of the girl I went to the ball with -- and I had a great time. I could see in her face that she enjoyed being there in the ball with me, even though I know she secretly had a crush on someone else, who didn't seem to have any clue about it at all, poor guy. Actually, I think I also have a secret crush on someone else -- I only think it, grandmother, so you don't have to storm in here and demand to see the girl!

I don't really know her but I see her around; she is the same age as me although she's in a different house, so we don't usually have the same classes. I think her name is Ana or Hannah, but I don't know much other than that. I see her more often now, though, because she's usually in the audience during the tournament. And I -- you'll be proud to know -- had an important role in that tournament. Well, the role only came at the later part because Harry needed help staying under the water for a long period of time so I helped him with what I learned from books. I thought I killed him at first, but it turned out OK in the end; I almost fainted with relief when I realized that, I don't mind telling you, but being part of the action was not so bad; it was actually fun, in its own way. I think I'm beginning to know what mom and dad felt before, when they wanted to fight bad people like You-Know-Who.

And that's one more thing I'd like to talk to you about. There's a rumor going around that You-Know-Who is back! Do you believe that? I don't want to believe it. But Harry said that this was true so I… I don't know. I don't want to believe it. The tournament ended and our school won, but one of the contestants died -- at the hands of You-Know-Who! True or not, the rumor has put a big cloud over our school's victory. But many friendships between students from different wizarding schools started because of the tournament. It also made me think that bravery, resourcefulness and strength of mind should be valued. So I guess it's not that hopeless if the rumor was true.

And with the tournament's end, the school year is also almost over. Many of the students have already started packing their things to go home. I wanted to tell you, however, that I'm not one of them. I mean I won't be home at school's end -- that's not right. I mean, I WILL be home, but probably a week or two after school's end. This is because I'm doing so well with one of my classes that the head professor gave me a list of books that I might want to read; I want to look for those books and probably do some reading and experimenting. I really want this, grandmother, so please understand. Please. I really feel that I could help many people with Herbology.

Again, please understand. You know that you'll always have my love and respect. That's all the news from here. Give Trevor my love.

Ever yours, Your Grandson

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