Chapter Text
Harry spends the summer playing quidditch with various friends and sending letters to his friends and going to the Weasley’s house and the Longbottom’s house. He also sees Dudley pretty regularly. Neville spends his summer doing much the same but he also works in his family greenhouses and he doesn’t get any replies to his letters. This second thing doesn’t really matter since he is going to his friends' houses regularly. It’s just frustrating because Hermione can’t come as often since she doesn’t have a floo because she is a muggleborn.
Harry and Neville have a plan to have a joint birthday party at Harry’s house with their friends on Harry’s birthday. On Neville’s birthday just after he finished having dinner and opening his family's presents with his Gran, he goes out to the greenhouses to check on his plants once more before going to bed and to talk to the snakes there. While there a house elf comes in and he assumes his Gran sent one of their elves in to remind him it is almost time for bed but when he looks up he sees an elf he has never seen before. This elf tries to tell him not to go back to Hogwarts this year and that it will be dangerous there this year. Then Neville finds out this elf has been stealing his letters and the elf implies it is being abused before leaving.
Neville goes back inside and asks his Gran about ways to protect his mail which his Gran informs him he already has a mail ward since he is famous and Neville asks if there is anti tampering magic to make sure no one with ill intent can mess with the mail ward. His Gran decides to check that. He also talks to his Gran about house elf abuse and his gran makes fun of him for being so caring to the dregs of society before recommending him books that explain the connection between house elves and wizards.
The rest of the summer goes smoothly. Harry and Neville get lots of presents at their birthday party.
The last week before school starts Harry, Neville, and all their friends go to buy their new school supplies. Then the boys find out the majority of the girls just wanted to go shopping this day because they could get signed copies of their DADA textbooks and meet the author who wrote them. Of course Pansy, Tracey, Susan, and Luna all agree with the boys. Although Luna says she doesn’t trust Lockhart because of all his nargles. Harry is surprised Hermione and Daphne like Lockhart; he thought they were both smarter than that.
Once they do get to buying their textbooks Lockhart tries to get a picture of him and Neville for the paper but Harry and Dudley grew up friends with Neville and have gotten used to helping him push away crazy fans. The three boys are able to avoid Neville having a picture taken with Lockhart or getting signed copies of his books that he doesn’t want.