Dec 1.0 Saturday Special: Mistletoe Missteps!
Title: Mistletoe Misstep
Summary: Magical mastletoe is released in Hogwarts. For Dec 1.0 Saturday Special: Mistletoe Missteps!
Characters/Pairings: Neville Longbottom. Implied on-sided...a lot of things. Draco/Neville
Genre: Comedy? But not very funny. A bit of fluff/romance maybe?
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for swearing
Word Count: 2424 words
Mistletoe missteps
Neville Longbottom knew this Christmas was hardly going to be the best on record. There was something thoroughly depressing about repeating a year of school, though it was hardly his fault. It was, of course, a much better quality of education then he’d received in his actual last year of school, and he was thankful for it in a way, but it seemed to him that fighting in the battle of Hogwarts and defeating a horcrux should at least earn him a few NEWTs.
But, they didn’t, so back to school. Though of course the castle was in ruin so temporary dorms and classrooms were the norm and he and most of the other older students gave good chunks of their weekend and evening to re rebuilding effort.
Still, the castle was cold and leaky, half fallen down, he didn’t really want to be here and, to top it all off, all of the returning year eight boys had been crammed together in a dorm, which made a sad kind of sense given their depleted numbers, but generally served to thoroughly depress him by reminding him just how many friends he’d lost.
Still, he knew he had to keep up spirits. He knew a lot of the younger students looked up to him for what he’d done with the D.A and in the final battle so he resisted the urge to say bah humbug when someone said something festive to him and instead forced a smile.
Others, though, were determined to capture the spirit of Christmases gone by. Almost all the students pitched in to decorate the great hall and though it might not have the splendour of yesteryear, it did look pretty grand. It was three days before the Christmas holiday (which he planned to spent with his gran, putting right some things around the house and visiting his parents in the hospital) that he first spotted the mistletoe. A single bunch of it, swooping through the air and catching people. It took him a while to figure out it was sticking them to the spot until they gave each other a peck on the lips, though that became obvious when it stuck Goyle and Malfoy and they tried every curse they could think of to get rid of the thing before finally being forced to kiss, most of the student body laughing at them.
Of course, he put it out of his mind after that, until the next day’s lunch when he realised one bunch had now turned into four, zooming around the room and catching people unaware. They seemed mostly to bother couples, but they caught a fair number of other people too. Ron had to kiss Goyle too, which Hermione seemed to find hilarious. Headmistress McGonnagle somehow got stuck under some of the stuff with professor Flitwick and Pansy spent a lot of time watching the stuff and following Draco around, as thought she could encourage it to give her some kisses.
Neville, for his part, stayed out of the way. He knew it was a little sad to admit at this point but he’d never been kissed and thought he knew the little kisses people were exchanging under the mistletoe hardly counted, well, he didn’t want his first kiss to be like that.
It all went to hell on breakfast of the last day of term. Neville didn’t think anything about the large package Ron received, Ron must not have thought anything of it too because he opened it at the table and suddenly it was like a storm of mistletoe.
In the resulting chaos there was a lot of screaming, both of joy and shock, as students scrambled over each other to get to who they wanted to kiss or ran away from the mistletoe, trying to hide themselves under the tables and benches.
For a second, Neville saw the mess and was half tempted. After all, he was aware of who he was, people liked him not but he was never going to be a paragon of male beauty and, well, most of the blokes he’d quite like to kiss were both massively out of his league and the kind of blokes who didn’t go in for kissing other blokes.
But, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be like he was really kissing them, like he really liked them. Grabbing a piece of toast he determinedly headed for the door.
He got three steps before he was caught. Like his feet were suddenly glued to the floor and he almost fell over. He looked around desperately to find, glued next to him, Parvati Patill. He breathed a sigh of relief, a girl so it woudln’t really count, it was more like kissing his gran then kissing someone he wanted.
Parvati blushed and shifted a little, though she couldn’t move her feet so it just looked like an odd kind of swaying.
“I...I guess we need to kiss?” she asked, seeming uncertain, and Neville gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt and like he was trying to convince her, not himself. He leant forward slowly then and let his lips brush against hers.
As their lips touched he felt the spell release and moved back straight away, straight into another trap, his feet sticking before he’d done more than stumbled a few steps. It took him a second to realise that his movement had somehow bought him face to face with Harry and that the other boy was stuck too.
“Erm...” Harry said, glancing around as if for help, but Ron and Hermione seemed to be trying to head of the mistletoe by snogging enthusiastically in a corner and nobody else seemed to be paying attention. “Guess we’re going to have to kiss?”
“Guess we are,” Neville said, in a tone he hoped wasn’t TOO hopeful. After all, if he was going to have his first kiss under a sprig of magical mistletoe, it might as well be with Harry Potter.
Neville, in the end, gave up on escaping the chaos. He’d been too far from the door anyway, and the damn stuff seemed stuck to him, every few steps there’d be someone looking at him with wide eyes and wanting a kiss. Some of them, well, ok, so maybe he’d had a bit of a fantasy about kissing Harry for a while, and Justin, well, he was a nice looking bloke, but he got pulled up by far too many starry eyed fifth, sixth and seventh years, some of who really went for it which was a bit worrying.
Luckily, it wasn’t too long before Hagrid entered the hall, demanding to know what was going on, which not only released the mistletoe out into the castle but caused a flood of squealing students who didn’t want to be stuck in a kiss with him.
It only took a few moments after that for the volume of mistletoe and students in the hall to reduce to a reasonable level so Neville could walk calmly back to the table and pick up the box the things had come in.
The first thing he noticed was the weasleys wizarding wheezes label on the side, which should have given them some clue from the start. There was a note at the bottom and he picked it up, glancing around before he dared to sit down and open it, but the only people left in the hall now were Hagrid, stood by the door looking confused and, of all people, Draco Malfoy, still pressing himself up against the wall near the Slytherin table and looking thoughtful.
He opened the note.
“Hello little brother,” the note read in George’s distinctive sloped handwriting, “Cheers for testing these for us, hope you all have fun. There is a way to stop them, let me know if you work it out. Also, these things are charmed to make it so they mostly stick people together if one of them has a crush on the other, doesn’t always work but sometimes, so if there’s anyone you’ve secretly wanted to have a snog with but Hermione won’t let you, go stand near them now, I won’t let her know.”
Neville re-read the note, pausing a little at the first line when George referred to himself as us. Seemed a lifetimes habit was hard to change and for a second he felt the weight of it, like George’s grief for his brother was all there in that one word.
He crumpled the note quickly, throwing it back into the box. The last piece of information was...interesting. He had noticed the mistletoe seemed to stick to some people, but he certainly hadn’t had crushes on most of the people who’d tried to kiss him. It couldn’t mean...could it? He knew people respected him but...crushes?
He stood up, intent on finding the headmistress and letting her know where the things came from, when he found himself confronted by Malfoy who had, apparently, come closer to get a look at the box, and his feet were stuck to the floor.
He blushed a little because, ok, this might be one of his. Mostly since the battle of Hogwarts, well, Draco had a nice body, and when he was pitching in with the rest of them and actively trying NOT to be dislikeable he wasn’t so bad, really. And, well, Neville wouldn’t say no to kissing him, and now he had no choice but to say yes.
Draco was giving him a strange look, like he didn’t know what to make of this.
“I thought it was all gone,” Draco said after a second, looking up at the mistletoe. “I couldn’t see any, must have been hiding.”
“Probably,” Neville agree. “It moves pretty fast, after all. Shall we...shall we just get this over with?”
Draco nodded, then he leant forward and pressed a small kiss on Neville’s lips, making away quickly.
Nothing happened.
“Damn,” Draco breathed, looking around as if someone else was going to appear for him to kiss and break the curse. Of course, nobody did, so he turned back to Neville.
“Maybe...” Neville started, his heart racing a little. “Maybe we need to, I don’t know, kiss more? Maybe this piece is really stubborn and wants more than a peck?”
“Maybe,” Draco said, his tone dubious, then he shrugged, leant forward and pressed his lips to Neville’s more firmly. It took Neville a few minutes to get with the program but, when he did, he leant forward into the kiss, moving his lips against Malfoys and he guessed he was clumsy but he seemed to be doing ok because he found Malfoy opening his lip for him, pulling him in closer, an arm around his neck, a hand on his side and it was glorious.
He didn’t know when in the kiss, exactly, they came unstuck from the floor but when he paid attention to his surroundings again he had the other man backed up against the wall and he felt...uncomfortable. Without a word he pushed of, walking to the door intent on finding a toilet cubicle and locking himself in it for the rest of the day.
As he left the hall, though, he did glance back to see Draco un-crumpling the note.
~*~*~*~
He waited until evening before venturing into the communal areas again and was gratified, on entering the great hall, to see George there looking thoroughly dressed down with a pile of deactivated mistletoe by his feet. He was the only person in the room and only a few piece of the stuff remained swooping high in the ceiling as if trying to avoid George’s wand. He’d never fancied George so he decided to task his chances.
“Alright,” he said, walking into the room. George glanced at him and flashed him a smile.
“Right, Neville? Been enjoying the new range?”
“No so much,” Neville said with a sigh. “I did see the note you left and I have to say it was a bit of a revelation.”
“Yeah, Ron said something about you being a bit popular. Well, they’re nearly all gone now so you can go about your business in peace, McGonagall gave me a real dressing down.”
“She would,” Neville agreed. “I have a question, actually. I noticed...well...most of the time the mistoetoe went away with just a peck on the lips but...this one time...”
“It wanted more?” George finished. “Yeah, that’s what happens when the two people stuck together have a crush on each other. Thought it was a nice feature, find out if you crush liked you back and get a cheeky kiss even if they don’t.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Neville said, flushing a little. It was definitely interesting, he was going to have a lot of think about over Christmas after all. “See you...”
As soon as the words left his mouth he felt his feet stick. He looked up to find one of the sprigs of leaves had swooped into range, and then down to find George was grinning at him.
“Sorry, mate,” he said, laying a hand on Neville’s shoulder. “High sex drive, and you’re kind of gorgeous when you’re fighting snakes and all...”
“Erm, thanks?” Neville said, then leaned in and give George a quick peck on the lips, glad to feel his feet release. “See you later.”
~*~*~*~
The mistletoe was released in the shop the next day, letting the rest of the Hogwarts population in on its secrets, something that apparently caused a lot of strain on the owl post system with people questioning each other. Neville half expected to get an owl from Draco but he didn’t, though he did get several tearful letters from various people asking why he DIDN’T want them, which he found incredibly horrible to reply to.
When he got back after the holidays, though, he found Draco sat on his bed, obviously waiting for Neville if the look he gave him when he came in was anything to go by.
“Longbottom,” he said, “We need to talk.”
“Yes, Draco, we do,” Neville said, then held out his hand for Draco to take. Draco looked at it for a second and then, hesitantly, took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. As Neville lead him out of the dorm, holding his hand firmly, he reflected that maybe the mistletoe wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Emma//Hufflepuff
2424/30 = 81 points
Summary: Magical mastletoe is released in Hogwarts. For Dec 1.0 Saturday Special: Mistletoe Missteps!
Characters/Pairings: Neville Longbottom. Implied on-sided...a lot of things. Draco/Neville
Genre: Comedy? But not very funny. A bit of fluff/romance maybe?
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for swearing
Word Count: 2424 words
Mistletoe missteps
Neville Longbottom knew this Christmas was hardly going to be the best on record. There was something thoroughly depressing about repeating a year of school, though it was hardly his fault. It was, of course, a much better quality of education then he’d received in his actual last year of school, and he was thankful for it in a way, but it seemed to him that fighting in the battle of Hogwarts and defeating a horcrux should at least earn him a few NEWTs.
But, they didn’t, so back to school. Though of course the castle was in ruin so temporary dorms and classrooms were the norm and he and most of the other older students gave good chunks of their weekend and evening to re rebuilding effort.
Still, the castle was cold and leaky, half fallen down, he didn’t really want to be here and, to top it all off, all of the returning year eight boys had been crammed together in a dorm, which made a sad kind of sense given their depleted numbers, but generally served to thoroughly depress him by reminding him just how many friends he’d lost.
Still, he knew he had to keep up spirits. He knew a lot of the younger students looked up to him for what he’d done with the D.A and in the final battle so he resisted the urge to say bah humbug when someone said something festive to him and instead forced a smile.
Others, though, were determined to capture the spirit of Christmases gone by. Almost all the students pitched in to decorate the great hall and though it might not have the splendour of yesteryear, it did look pretty grand. It was three days before the Christmas holiday (which he planned to spent with his gran, putting right some things around the house and visiting his parents in the hospital) that he first spotted the mistletoe. A single bunch of it, swooping through the air and catching people. It took him a while to figure out it was sticking them to the spot until they gave each other a peck on the lips, though that became obvious when it stuck Goyle and Malfoy and they tried every curse they could think of to get rid of the thing before finally being forced to kiss, most of the student body laughing at them.
Of course, he put it out of his mind after that, until the next day’s lunch when he realised one bunch had now turned into four, zooming around the room and catching people unaware. They seemed mostly to bother couples, but they caught a fair number of other people too. Ron had to kiss Goyle too, which Hermione seemed to find hilarious. Headmistress McGonnagle somehow got stuck under some of the stuff with professor Flitwick and Pansy spent a lot of time watching the stuff and following Draco around, as thought she could encourage it to give her some kisses.
Neville, for his part, stayed out of the way. He knew it was a little sad to admit at this point but he’d never been kissed and thought he knew the little kisses people were exchanging under the mistletoe hardly counted, well, he didn’t want his first kiss to be like that.
It all went to hell on breakfast of the last day of term. Neville didn’t think anything about the large package Ron received, Ron must not have thought anything of it too because he opened it at the table and suddenly it was like a storm of mistletoe.
In the resulting chaos there was a lot of screaming, both of joy and shock, as students scrambled over each other to get to who they wanted to kiss or ran away from the mistletoe, trying to hide themselves under the tables and benches.
For a second, Neville saw the mess and was half tempted. After all, he was aware of who he was, people liked him not but he was never going to be a paragon of male beauty and, well, most of the blokes he’d quite like to kiss were both massively out of his league and the kind of blokes who didn’t go in for kissing other blokes.
But, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be like he was really kissing them, like he really liked them. Grabbing a piece of toast he determinedly headed for the door.
He got three steps before he was caught. Like his feet were suddenly glued to the floor and he almost fell over. He looked around desperately to find, glued next to him, Parvati Patill. He breathed a sigh of relief, a girl so it woudln’t really count, it was more like kissing his gran then kissing someone he wanted.
Parvati blushed and shifted a little, though she couldn’t move her feet so it just looked like an odd kind of swaying.
“I...I guess we need to kiss?” she asked, seeming uncertain, and Neville gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt and like he was trying to convince her, not himself. He leant forward slowly then and let his lips brush against hers.
As their lips touched he felt the spell release and moved back straight away, straight into another trap, his feet sticking before he’d done more than stumbled a few steps. It took him a second to realise that his movement had somehow bought him face to face with Harry and that the other boy was stuck too.
“Erm...” Harry said, glancing around as if for help, but Ron and Hermione seemed to be trying to head of the mistletoe by snogging enthusiastically in a corner and nobody else seemed to be paying attention. “Guess we’re going to have to kiss?”
“Guess we are,” Neville said, in a tone he hoped wasn’t TOO hopeful. After all, if he was going to have his first kiss under a sprig of magical mistletoe, it might as well be with Harry Potter.
Neville, in the end, gave up on escaping the chaos. He’d been too far from the door anyway, and the damn stuff seemed stuck to him, every few steps there’d be someone looking at him with wide eyes and wanting a kiss. Some of them, well, ok, so maybe he’d had a bit of a fantasy about kissing Harry for a while, and Justin, well, he was a nice looking bloke, but he got pulled up by far too many starry eyed fifth, sixth and seventh years, some of who really went for it which was a bit worrying.
Luckily, it wasn’t too long before Hagrid entered the hall, demanding to know what was going on, which not only released the mistletoe out into the castle but caused a flood of squealing students who didn’t want to be stuck in a kiss with him.
It only took a few moments after that for the volume of mistletoe and students in the hall to reduce to a reasonable level so Neville could walk calmly back to the table and pick up the box the things had come in.
The first thing he noticed was the weasleys wizarding wheezes label on the side, which should have given them some clue from the start. There was a note at the bottom and he picked it up, glancing around before he dared to sit down and open it, but the only people left in the hall now were Hagrid, stood by the door looking confused and, of all people, Draco Malfoy, still pressing himself up against the wall near the Slytherin table and looking thoughtful.
He opened the note.
“Hello little brother,” the note read in George’s distinctive sloped handwriting, “Cheers for testing these for us, hope you all have fun. There is a way to stop them, let me know if you work it out. Also, these things are charmed to make it so they mostly stick people together if one of them has a crush on the other, doesn’t always work but sometimes, so if there’s anyone you’ve secretly wanted to have a snog with but Hermione won’t let you, go stand near them now, I won’t let her know.”
Neville re-read the note, pausing a little at the first line when George referred to himself as us. Seemed a lifetimes habit was hard to change and for a second he felt the weight of it, like George’s grief for his brother was all there in that one word.
He crumpled the note quickly, throwing it back into the box. The last piece of information was...interesting. He had noticed the mistletoe seemed to stick to some people, but he certainly hadn’t had crushes on most of the people who’d tried to kiss him. It couldn’t mean...could it? He knew people respected him but...crushes?
He stood up, intent on finding the headmistress and letting her know where the things came from, when he found himself confronted by Malfoy who had, apparently, come closer to get a look at the box, and his feet were stuck to the floor.
He blushed a little because, ok, this might be one of his. Mostly since the battle of Hogwarts, well, Draco had a nice body, and when he was pitching in with the rest of them and actively trying NOT to be dislikeable he wasn’t so bad, really. And, well, Neville wouldn’t say no to kissing him, and now he had no choice but to say yes.
Draco was giving him a strange look, like he didn’t know what to make of this.
“I thought it was all gone,” Draco said after a second, looking up at the mistletoe. “I couldn’t see any, must have been hiding.”
“Probably,” Neville agree. “It moves pretty fast, after all. Shall we...shall we just get this over with?”
Draco nodded, then he leant forward and pressed a small kiss on Neville’s lips, making away quickly.
Nothing happened.
“Damn,” Draco breathed, looking around as if someone else was going to appear for him to kiss and break the curse. Of course, nobody did, so he turned back to Neville.
“Maybe...” Neville started, his heart racing a little. “Maybe we need to, I don’t know, kiss more? Maybe this piece is really stubborn and wants more than a peck?”
“Maybe,” Draco said, his tone dubious, then he shrugged, leant forward and pressed his lips to Neville’s more firmly. It took Neville a few minutes to get with the program but, when he did, he leant forward into the kiss, moving his lips against Malfoys and he guessed he was clumsy but he seemed to be doing ok because he found Malfoy opening his lip for him, pulling him in closer, an arm around his neck, a hand on his side and it was glorious.
He didn’t know when in the kiss, exactly, they came unstuck from the floor but when he paid attention to his surroundings again he had the other man backed up against the wall and he felt...uncomfortable. Without a word he pushed of, walking to the door intent on finding a toilet cubicle and locking himself in it for the rest of the day.
As he left the hall, though, he did glance back to see Draco un-crumpling the note.
~*~*~*~
He waited until evening before venturing into the communal areas again and was gratified, on entering the great hall, to see George there looking thoroughly dressed down with a pile of deactivated mistletoe by his feet. He was the only person in the room and only a few piece of the stuff remained swooping high in the ceiling as if trying to avoid George’s wand. He’d never fancied George so he decided to task his chances.
“Alright,” he said, walking into the room. George glanced at him and flashed him a smile.
“Right, Neville? Been enjoying the new range?”
“No so much,” Neville said with a sigh. “I did see the note you left and I have to say it was a bit of a revelation.”
“Yeah, Ron said something about you being a bit popular. Well, they’re nearly all gone now so you can go about your business in peace, McGonagall gave me a real dressing down.”
“She would,” Neville agreed. “I have a question, actually. I noticed...well...most of the time the mistoetoe went away with just a peck on the lips but...this one time...”
“It wanted more?” George finished. “Yeah, that’s what happens when the two people stuck together have a crush on each other. Thought it was a nice feature, find out if you crush liked you back and get a cheeky kiss even if they don’t.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Neville said, flushing a little. It was definitely interesting, he was going to have a lot of think about over Christmas after all. “See you...”
As soon as the words left his mouth he felt his feet stick. He looked up to find one of the sprigs of leaves had swooped into range, and then down to find George was grinning at him.
“Sorry, mate,” he said, laying a hand on Neville’s shoulder. “High sex drive, and you’re kind of gorgeous when you’re fighting snakes and all...”
“Erm, thanks?” Neville said, then leaned in and give George a quick peck on the lips, glad to feel his feet release. “See you later.”
~*~*~*~
The mistletoe was released in the shop the next day, letting the rest of the Hogwarts population in on its secrets, something that apparently caused a lot of strain on the owl post system with people questioning each other. Neville half expected to get an owl from Draco but he didn’t, though he did get several tearful letters from various people asking why he DIDN’T want them, which he found incredibly horrible to reply to.
When he got back after the holidays, though, he found Draco sat on his bed, obviously waiting for Neville if the look he gave him when he came in was anything to go by.
“Longbottom,” he said, “We need to talk.”
“Yes, Draco, we do,” Neville said, then held out his hand for Draco to take. Draco looked at it for a second and then, hesitantly, took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. As Neville lead him out of the dorm, holding his hand firmly, he reflected that maybe the mistletoe wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Emma//Hufflepuff
2424/30 = 81 points