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"A great wizard Neville, that's what you are," Magnus spoke as Neviell looked at him in shock.
"And you're my friend. I know you might not see it yourself, but I do. You can do great things if you put your mind to it, Nev, you just need to try."
"So what if people call you something else, what matters is what you do about it. Do you sit back and take it, or do you keep pushing and prove them wrong."
Neville looked at Magnus in complete shock at the conviction and faith that he was showing in him, he had absolutely no response to this, how could he, his entire life he had been looked down on.
His family had thought he was a squib for the longest time, and even now he struggled in the majority of his magical classes, showing no real talent except in herbology, and even that wasn't enough to please his gran.
But Magnus was showing such faith in him, they had known each other for a short while and yet he had faith like this in him that he could be great, it was honestly a bit embarrassing.
Harry placed his hand on Neville's shoulder and smiled at him, "we're your friends Nev, you'll always be a great wizard to us, we want you to do this with us, but we won't force you into it, you don't have to if you don't want to."
Neville swallowed hard and looked down at his hands, the same hands that he had always seen belonging to a failure.
But now both his friends were telling him that he wasn't, he wanted to help them, he wanted to prove them both right, and prove everyone was wrong about him.
He looked back up and grinned at them both with a fire in his eyes, "I'm in."
"That's the spirit Nev," Magnus grinned as Harry gave a laugh hearing Neviell agree to join them.
Neville smiled nervously before swallowing, "but um, what if we get caught? My gran will kill me if we do." He said softly.
Magnus grinned cheekily, "we won't be, as long as we're careful and plan ahead in advance. Speaking of which, I think the next prank that we work on should be all you two." He said pointing at them both.
"Seeing as how I managed to pull off this mornings entertainment all on my own, I believe I've more than proven that I'm up to maintaining the marauders' name, consider this your audition of sorts. I'll still help if you need it, but everything else has to be all you two."
Both boys looked at him wide-eyed at his idea but slowly a grin crept onto Harry's face, "challenge accepted" he replied grinning widely.
Neville looked a little nervous but nonetheless ready, "yeah, me too." He voiced after a couple of seconds to steel himself, he was in it now he wasn't going to back out before they had even really started.
"Perfect," Magnus said as he leaned on the table, "now there is one more thing that I need to mention, our marauder names, for now, they are going to have to wait."
"Why?" Harry asked with a frown, not really seeing why they shouldn't give themselves prankster names already if they were really going to do this.
"Because, the marauders' nicknames were picked after their animagus forms, at least that's what my dad's journal suspected," Magnus explained.
"An animagus?" Harry asked, confused as to what that was, never having heard of it before.
"They were animagi?" Neville said, sounding shocked and very impressed and with good reason.
Magnus nodded, "Yes," he answered Neviell before looking at Harry, "an animagus is a witch or wizard who is capable of transforming themselves into an animal, without the need of a spell, like how Professor McGonnagal changes into a cat and back." He explained.
"Your dad was able to take the form of a large stag, Sirius was able to take the form of a big shaggy dog something like a wolfhound or a grim, Peter could turn into a rat" he went on.
"My dad was never able to figure out what Remus's form was, though I suspect it was a wolf if his marauder name was Moony."
"That sounds awesome," Harry said, even more, amazed at hearing his dad had been able to do something like that, "so I take it you want to wait until we become animagi before we pick our names?"
Magnus smirked, "now you're catching on. The original marauders took until their fifth year to perfect their transformations, but I think we could probably get it down by our third year if we really tried hard."
"I've read that it's quite difficult to do, but well worth it to be able to turn into an animal whenever you want."
"It sounds wicked," Harry agreed, eager to follow in his father's footsteps.
Neville swallowed and nodded, "yeah it does, I only hope that…." he began again only for Magnus to cut him off again.
"None of that Neville," Magnus said sharply, "don't doubt yourself, the only way for you to know is to try, you won't fail," he told him, getting a nod from Neviell as his shoulders slumped.
'I really need to work more on getting his confidence up,' Magnus thought to himself before he eyed Neviells wand and a light clicked on in his mind.
'And that's where I'll start' he thought before speaking again, "Neville, where did you get that wand?" He asked, pointing to it.
Neville looked shocked at the sudden change of topic as he picked up the wand and held it protectively, "It's mine," he said as he held it.
"Well… it was my dad's before it was mine, but my gran gave it to me to use, she said if it was good enough for him to use then it would be good enough for me, I think she thinks that it will make me more like him if I use it."
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