lonely let the flowers grow (Neville/Luna, PG)
lonely let the flowers grow
Author: pumpkinpasty
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2408
Summary: Neville and Luna bond over Herbology, and along with Ginny, they decide to reform the DA.
Notes: THANK YOU LEXICON, for your tutelage in Herbology. For fireworkfiasco, who requested Neville/Luna, copper, and lonely.
- - -
The castle, she notes, is unnaturally quiet for this time of year, and the silence is something she can't understand. The few, scattered classmates who did return at the start of term don't look each other in the eye -- and isn't it strange, Luna thinks, that they don't take comfort in the familiar faces, in the usual voices and comfort of the big castle?
Still, however odd they're behaving, she can't do much more than continue her days, talking to those who will listen about Ministry conspiracies and the nest of nargles she found in the Ravenclaw dormitory. Neville -- ever-kind, ever-quiet Neville -- is one of those people.
Except that he isn't quite Neville, anymore. He's different now. He stands a little taller, speaks a little louder. And somehow he looks older, worn, tired; he's a bit surer, a little less clumsy, and he's perfected his defiance, standing up to the Death Eaters and the torture with the ferocity of someone with honest conviction.
It makes her feel oddly safe, and a bit braver, too.
And Luna wonders if this new ferocity is because that evil woman who tortured his parents is free, because she arrived at Hogwarts last Wednesday morning during breakfast, or just because he sees himself in the younger students, bullied defenseless by the Carrows.
Either way, she finds him one lazy autumn afternoon, holed up in greenhouse three, covered in dirt and pollen and smelling heavily of fresh earth. Professor Sprout stands on a stool in the corner, taking a toothbrush to a hanging plant's thorns and crooning softly. At the sound of Luna's feet crunching through the dirt, Neville looks up from the scrubbed wooden table and smiles.
"Hey, Luna," he says, scooping a pile of dirt from a bucket beneath the table. "All right?"
She shuts the door behind her, stifling the brief burst of breeze, and leans over the table.
"Oh, I'm fine," she says, peering down at the various piles of wrinkly green and purple pods on the table. "Are those Wrackspurt eggs?"
Neville looks at her. "Er -- no," he says. "They're actually -- er -- Abyssinian shrivelfigs. Good for Shrinking Solutions."
She watches as he peels one with care, revealing something that looks rather like an overlarge, pulsating grape. "You've got to peel them, though; they're useless with the skin on," he says, lowering the slightly wriggling thing into a separate, copper bowl with a remarkably steady hand.
"Can I help?" Luna says suddenly, making her way around the table and standing very close to Neville. Oddly, his ears twinge pink as he nods and plucks another fig from the pile to his right.
"Sure, yeah, here -- careful, though. When you start peeling it'll try to get away from you, so you've got to -- to keep a firm grip..."
He trails off as she holds the fig up to her ear, apparently listening hard, and then brings it to her lips and whispers softly, "Don't worry, I'll be careful."
"Er -- right, well. D'you see that little knot on the top, there? That's where you start -- and then just peel clockwise, and try to get the whole thing off in one go, if the skin breaks into pieces it'll start getting restless."
Luna nods and leans low, her long, pale hair falling into her face as she starts picking at the little knot. She peels slowly, deliberately, and Neville watches, his eyes drifting from her fingers to her arms to the pale of her eyelashes. After a moment, a large handful of her hair slips over her shoulder, blocking her face from his view, and -- almost involuntarily -- he reaches a hand up to brush it back.
Her eyes flick in his direction, for the briefest of moments, and he flushes.
When the wrinkled skin is entirely detached from the shrivelfig, Luna cups the little slimy thing carefully and holds it out to Neville, over the copper-plated pot containing the other peeled fruits.
"Right, excellent -- really good job, Luna --"
He reaches out to take it, jumping as her hand skates softly over his, and he drops the shrivelfig unceremoniously in the pot. It screeches.
"Careful there, Longbottom!" Professor Sprout grunts from the corner, her voice a bit rough as she wrestles with one of the fanged plant's vines.
"Right, Professor, sorry."
And Luna watches as Neville turns back to the pile of unpeeled figs, vaguely noting the gooseflesh cresting over his skin.
They sit in peaceful silence for the next several minutes, peeling fig after fig, until Luna turns to him and tilts her head.
"Why do you like Herbology?" she asks. Neville frowns.
"I dunno," he says. "It's kind of cool that plants can help people, I guess. As cures and stuff." He pauses. "But mostly because I'm good at it, and I'm not good at a lot of things."
"I think you're good at things," she remarks, as if it isn't a reason for him to blush.
"Well -- er. You're the only one."
"You make us feel safe, when you stand up to the Carrows," she says, matter-of-factly, turning back to the figs.
Neville blushes, if possible, even deeper. But he stands a little taller.
"I hate them," he says fiercely.
"You shouldn't hate," she says, and frowns.
He has the decency to look a bit ashamed, but she moves on.
"Don't you ever get lonely, out here? You are out here quite a lot."
"Not really," he says. "I mean, I've got the plants, and Professor Sprout is usually here, and -- and it isn't so bad, being alone."
"Oh," Luna says, looking barely, vaguely, crestfallen. Neville almost doesn't recognise it.
"Not that, y'know, I wouldn't like some company," he adds hastily. "That would be, er -- nice."
He busies himself with the rows of potted plants behind them, plucking more figs from leafy green, fernlike bushes.
"Good," she says, and plops another fig in the pot.
It screeches, and they laugh.
::
She is on her way back to the greenhouses a week later when she nearly runs facefirst into Ginny, who stumbles and clutches at her stomach, looking pale and clammy. She wobbles on her feet and leans onto Luna to steady herself.
"You look terrible," Luna says, and Ginny's hand quavers on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"The Carrows," Ginny manages. "And Bellatrix. Snape told me I needed to show him more respect and I told him what he could do with his respect. Right in front of them."
Luna clucks her tongue sympathetically and takes Ginny's hand. "Hospital wing?" she asks, and takes a step back towards the castle.
"Can't," Ginny says, wincing. "That -- woman told me I'd have it worse if I went. I just -- just need to lie down... Where were you going?"
"To the greenhouses, to meet Neville, but we can --"
"No, no -- I'll go. Maybe Sprout will have -- something..." She trails off, shudders and dry heaves into the grass, Luna gripping her arms bracingly.
They make their way slowly into greenhouse three, both of them stumbling over the threshold as they enter. Professor Sprout and Neville both leap up -- Sprout from her desk, where she seemed to be counting the seeds in a little mound; Neville from his spot on the ground, where he was pruning his Mimbulus Mimbletonia.
"Ginny--"
"Miss Weasley--"
"She's had the Cruciatus on her," Luna says, lowering Ginny into a chair. Her face is ashen, but her eyes, though a bit glazed, still look fierce.
"And some weird potion," Ginny adds. "Dunno what it was -- bright green, though, and disgusting, too..."
Professor Sprout hurries to the store cupboard and begins pulling out various jars. "Hold on, dear, I have something --"
Neville and Luna look at each other over the top of Ginny's head, and they know that they're both thinking the same thing: how much more of this can they take?
"Here," Professor Sprout says, pushing Neville and Luna aside and holding a vial of a yellowish-looking pus underneath Ginny's nose. "Drink this. It will help with the pain, and hopefully counteract whatever the effects of that potion were -- no doubt it was something to make you feel perpetually ill."
Ginny wrinkles her nose but takes the vial and downs it, coughing and spluttering. "It burns."
"Is that essence of gurdyroot, Professor?" Luna asks, plucking the vial from Ginny's hands and squinting one eye to peer inside.
"Er -- no. Essence of hellebore and knotgrass. Excellent --"
"-- for the nervous and digestive systems." Neville finishes. "It also has restorative properties."
Professor Sprout stops checking Ginny's temperature with the back of her hand long enough to beam at him.
"Very good, Longbottom."
When she's certain that Ginny is all right, albeit a bit shaken, she stands up, takes the vial, and sits back down at her desk, leaning close to the wood and beginning to separate the seeds again. Luna sits cross-legged in front of Ginny's chair and starts humming; Neville drags his Mimbulus Mimbletonia next to them and resumes his pruning.
They sit mostly in silence, save for Ginny's occasional hiccup -- "The hellebore will do that to you, sorry, dear," says Professor Sprout -- and busy themselves with various plants. Ginny tickles the leaves of a flutterby bush, while Luna struggles to pot a pair of bouncing bulbs; after a while she gives up and lets them bounce underneath the table, snatching a little stick to draw shapes in the dirt instead.
It is a long time before any of them speak, but when Neville lets out a growl of frustration and jumps to his feet, Ginny, Luna, and Professor Sprout all look up at him.
"I'm so sick of this!"
Luna tilts her head, Ginny lets out a shout of assent, and Professor Sprout peers at him sadly from under the brim of her pointed straw hat.
"We're not -- they shouldn't -- this is Hogwarts!" Neville bursts out. One of the bouncing bulbs sails from the top of the table and hits him hard in the knee. "Ow," he says, rubbing it, looking both affronted and a bit sheepish.
"All I'm saying is that we've got to do something -- we've got to -- I dunno -- fight!"
"Longbottom," Professor Sprout says wearily, "there is a time for fighting, and there is a time for waiting to fight. Right now is not the former."
Ginny stands up, her legs no longer shaky, and opens her mouth defiantly. Before she can say anything, though, the door to the greenhouse bursts open and Professor McGonagall flies through, looking wildly urgent and disheveled, wispy hairs from her bun tumbling down around her face.
"Pomona --" she gasps, "Severus, and that Lestrange woman -- I heard them talking, and they're coming down within the hour to demand your entire supply of Mandrakes." She looks around the room, her eyes barely flicking over the three students. "I don't know what they're planning, but you must hide them, transfigure them, destroy them --"
Professor Sprout leaps up, as do Ginny, Neville, and Luna.
"Longbottom," she says sharply. "You know where they are -- grab three pairs of earmuffs and bring them to me -- I have a cupboard, here: expandable and impenetrable. I was afraid something like this would happen. Minerva, if you could help me tighten the wards around it, please --"
Neville is moving before Ginny or Luna turn around. He thrusts two pairs of earmuffs into their hands and heads for the back of the greenhouse, turning the corner around the Venomous Tentacula and brushing aside an asphodel bush to reveal several rows of pots, all of varying sizes, the bushes springing from them trembling precariously.
"They're going to try to get out the minute they realise someone's moving them," he tells them, "so move fast. They're all of different sizes, and ages, so there's no telling if they'll kill you or knock you out, and obviously, we don't want to know. Ready?"
And with that they start seizing pot after pot, fleeing back and forth between Professor Sprout's cupboard and the nook behind the asphodel plant, trying not to trip over moving roots and doing rather odd pirouettes to avoid crashing into each other. Within fifteen frenzied minutes, Luna is shoving the last two mandrakes into the cupboard and stumbling backwards, dirt in her hair, feeling dizzy. Neville catches her arm as the two teachers look at them sharply.
"Discretion!" Professor McGonagall barks, her pointed hat trembling.
"Go on," says Professor Sprout, wiping her forehead. "The last thing you three need is to be seen here, now, by Professor Snape and his... colleagues."
And with that, the three flee the greenhouse, only narrowly missing Snape and the Carrows.
They run until they reach the edge of the forest, panting hard, and they sink into the grass, their hearts still beating too wildly to speak with any coherency. After a moment Luna lies down and spreads her arms in the grass; Neville and Ginny follow suit, all three of them sighing heavily.
"Well," Ginny says, "I think that counts as fighting back, doesn't it?"
Neville and Luna both murmur their assent. Then Neville props himself on his elbows and looks at them, frowning hard.
"Listen," he says, "what if -- what if we start the DA again?"
"The DA?"
"Yeah, I mean -- we could use the Room of Requirement again, and I'm sure we all have our old galleons -- or we could make new ones -- and, well. We could show Snape that we're not going to take this lying down." He pauses. "Dumbledore's Army, remember?"
There's a heavy silence following his words, and Ginny and Luna prop themselves up on their elbows too, looking at him carefully.
"Harry would be proud, knowing we kept the DA going," Ginny says softly.
Luna, on the other hand, stares at Neville intently, her pale-blue eyes wide.
"Er -- Luna?"
And then, quite without warning, quite without pretence, Luna sits up, leans forward, and kisses Neville promptly on the mouth.
His face burns, and Ginny collapses on the ground again, burying her face in her arms and giggling wildly.
"I -- what was that for?"
Luna shrugs.
"It just felt like the moment to do it." She pauses. "You did like it, didn't you?"
Neville looks flustered, but a smile tugs at his lips.
"I -- yeah." He grins and puffs his chest out, a bit. "Yeah, I did. Thanks, Luna."
And he takes her hand, and Luna takes Ginny's, and Ginny does her best to fight giggles all the way back to the castle.
- - -
Feedback is always appreciated, and as always, feel free to friend this journal. :)
Author: pumpkinpasty
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2408
Summary: Neville and Luna bond over Herbology, and along with Ginny, they decide to reform the DA.
Notes: THANK YOU LEXICON, for your tutelage in Herbology. For fireworkfiasco, who requested Neville/Luna, copper, and lonely.
- - -
The castle, she notes, is unnaturally quiet for this time of year, and the silence is something she can't understand. The few, scattered classmates who did return at the start of term don't look each other in the eye -- and isn't it strange, Luna thinks, that they don't take comfort in the familiar faces, in the usual voices and comfort of the big castle?
Still, however odd they're behaving, she can't do much more than continue her days, talking to those who will listen about Ministry conspiracies and the nest of nargles she found in the Ravenclaw dormitory. Neville -- ever-kind, ever-quiet Neville -- is one of those people.
Except that he isn't quite Neville, anymore. He's different now. He stands a little taller, speaks a little louder. And somehow he looks older, worn, tired; he's a bit surer, a little less clumsy, and he's perfected his defiance, standing up to the Death Eaters and the torture with the ferocity of someone with honest conviction.
It makes her feel oddly safe, and a bit braver, too.
And Luna wonders if this new ferocity is because that evil woman who tortured his parents is free, because she arrived at Hogwarts last Wednesday morning during breakfast, or just because he sees himself in the younger students, bullied defenseless by the Carrows.
Either way, she finds him one lazy autumn afternoon, holed up in greenhouse three, covered in dirt and pollen and smelling heavily of fresh earth. Professor Sprout stands on a stool in the corner, taking a toothbrush to a hanging plant's thorns and crooning softly. At the sound of Luna's feet crunching through the dirt, Neville looks up from the scrubbed wooden table and smiles.
"Hey, Luna," he says, scooping a pile of dirt from a bucket beneath the table. "All right?"
She shuts the door behind her, stifling the brief burst of breeze, and leans over the table.
"Oh, I'm fine," she says, peering down at the various piles of wrinkly green and purple pods on the table. "Are those Wrackspurt eggs?"
Neville looks at her. "Er -- no," he says. "They're actually -- er -- Abyssinian shrivelfigs. Good for Shrinking Solutions."
She watches as he peels one with care, revealing something that looks rather like an overlarge, pulsating grape. "You've got to peel them, though; they're useless with the skin on," he says, lowering the slightly wriggling thing into a separate, copper bowl with a remarkably steady hand.
"Can I help?" Luna says suddenly, making her way around the table and standing very close to Neville. Oddly, his ears twinge pink as he nods and plucks another fig from the pile to his right.
"Sure, yeah, here -- careful, though. When you start peeling it'll try to get away from you, so you've got to -- to keep a firm grip..."
He trails off as she holds the fig up to her ear, apparently listening hard, and then brings it to her lips and whispers softly, "Don't worry, I'll be careful."
"Er -- right, well. D'you see that little knot on the top, there? That's where you start -- and then just peel clockwise, and try to get the whole thing off in one go, if the skin breaks into pieces it'll start getting restless."
Luna nods and leans low, her long, pale hair falling into her face as she starts picking at the little knot. She peels slowly, deliberately, and Neville watches, his eyes drifting from her fingers to her arms to the pale of her eyelashes. After a moment, a large handful of her hair slips over her shoulder, blocking her face from his view, and -- almost involuntarily -- he reaches a hand up to brush it back.
Her eyes flick in his direction, for the briefest of moments, and he flushes.
When the wrinkled skin is entirely detached from the shrivelfig, Luna cups the little slimy thing carefully and holds it out to Neville, over the copper-plated pot containing the other peeled fruits.
"Right, excellent -- really good job, Luna --"
He reaches out to take it, jumping as her hand skates softly over his, and he drops the shrivelfig unceremoniously in the pot. It screeches.
"Careful there, Longbottom!" Professor Sprout grunts from the corner, her voice a bit rough as she wrestles with one of the fanged plant's vines.
"Right, Professor, sorry."
And Luna watches as Neville turns back to the pile of unpeeled figs, vaguely noting the gooseflesh cresting over his skin.
They sit in peaceful silence for the next several minutes, peeling fig after fig, until Luna turns to him and tilts her head.
"Why do you like Herbology?" she asks. Neville frowns.
"I dunno," he says. "It's kind of cool that plants can help people, I guess. As cures and stuff." He pauses. "But mostly because I'm good at it, and I'm not good at a lot of things."
"I think you're good at things," she remarks, as if it isn't a reason for him to blush.
"Well -- er. You're the only one."
"You make us feel safe, when you stand up to the Carrows," she says, matter-of-factly, turning back to the figs.
Neville blushes, if possible, even deeper. But he stands a little taller.
"I hate them," he says fiercely.
"You shouldn't hate," she says, and frowns.
He has the decency to look a bit ashamed, but she moves on.
"Don't you ever get lonely, out here? You are out here quite a lot."
"Not really," he says. "I mean, I've got the plants, and Professor Sprout is usually here, and -- and it isn't so bad, being alone."
"Oh," Luna says, looking barely, vaguely, crestfallen. Neville almost doesn't recognise it.
"Not that, y'know, I wouldn't like some company," he adds hastily. "That would be, er -- nice."
He busies himself with the rows of potted plants behind them, plucking more figs from leafy green, fernlike bushes.
"Good," she says, and plops another fig in the pot.
It screeches, and they laugh.
::
She is on her way back to the greenhouses a week later when she nearly runs facefirst into Ginny, who stumbles and clutches at her stomach, looking pale and clammy. She wobbles on her feet and leans onto Luna to steady herself.
"You look terrible," Luna says, and Ginny's hand quavers on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"The Carrows," Ginny manages. "And Bellatrix. Snape told me I needed to show him more respect and I told him what he could do with his respect. Right in front of them."
Luna clucks her tongue sympathetically and takes Ginny's hand. "Hospital wing?" she asks, and takes a step back towards the castle.
"Can't," Ginny says, wincing. "That -- woman told me I'd have it worse if I went. I just -- just need to lie down... Where were you going?"
"To the greenhouses, to meet Neville, but we can --"
"No, no -- I'll go. Maybe Sprout will have -- something..." She trails off, shudders and dry heaves into the grass, Luna gripping her arms bracingly.
They make their way slowly into greenhouse three, both of them stumbling over the threshold as they enter. Professor Sprout and Neville both leap up -- Sprout from her desk, where she seemed to be counting the seeds in a little mound; Neville from his spot on the ground, where he was pruning his Mimbulus Mimbletonia.
"Ginny--"
"Miss Weasley--"
"She's had the Cruciatus on her," Luna says, lowering Ginny into a chair. Her face is ashen, but her eyes, though a bit glazed, still look fierce.
"And some weird potion," Ginny adds. "Dunno what it was -- bright green, though, and disgusting, too..."
Professor Sprout hurries to the store cupboard and begins pulling out various jars. "Hold on, dear, I have something --"
Neville and Luna look at each other over the top of Ginny's head, and they know that they're both thinking the same thing: how much more of this can they take?
"Here," Professor Sprout says, pushing Neville and Luna aside and holding a vial of a yellowish-looking pus underneath Ginny's nose. "Drink this. It will help with the pain, and hopefully counteract whatever the effects of that potion were -- no doubt it was something to make you feel perpetually ill."
Ginny wrinkles her nose but takes the vial and downs it, coughing and spluttering. "It burns."
"Is that essence of gurdyroot, Professor?" Luna asks, plucking the vial from Ginny's hands and squinting one eye to peer inside.
"Er -- no. Essence of hellebore and knotgrass. Excellent --"
"-- for the nervous and digestive systems." Neville finishes. "It also has restorative properties."
Professor Sprout stops checking Ginny's temperature with the back of her hand long enough to beam at him.
"Very good, Longbottom."
When she's certain that Ginny is all right, albeit a bit shaken, she stands up, takes the vial, and sits back down at her desk, leaning close to the wood and beginning to separate the seeds again. Luna sits cross-legged in front of Ginny's chair and starts humming; Neville drags his Mimbulus Mimbletonia next to them and resumes his pruning.
They sit mostly in silence, save for Ginny's occasional hiccup -- "The hellebore will do that to you, sorry, dear," says Professor Sprout -- and busy themselves with various plants. Ginny tickles the leaves of a flutterby bush, while Luna struggles to pot a pair of bouncing bulbs; after a while she gives up and lets them bounce underneath the table, snatching a little stick to draw shapes in the dirt instead.
It is a long time before any of them speak, but when Neville lets out a growl of frustration and jumps to his feet, Ginny, Luna, and Professor Sprout all look up at him.
"I'm so sick of this!"
Luna tilts her head, Ginny lets out a shout of assent, and Professor Sprout peers at him sadly from under the brim of her pointed straw hat.
"We're not -- they shouldn't -- this is Hogwarts!" Neville bursts out. One of the bouncing bulbs sails from the top of the table and hits him hard in the knee. "Ow," he says, rubbing it, looking both affronted and a bit sheepish.
"All I'm saying is that we've got to do something -- we've got to -- I dunno -- fight!"
"Longbottom," Professor Sprout says wearily, "there is a time for fighting, and there is a time for waiting to fight. Right now is not the former."
Ginny stands up, her legs no longer shaky, and opens her mouth defiantly. Before she can say anything, though, the door to the greenhouse bursts open and Professor McGonagall flies through, looking wildly urgent and disheveled, wispy hairs from her bun tumbling down around her face.
"Pomona --" she gasps, "Severus, and that Lestrange woman -- I heard them talking, and they're coming down within the hour to demand your entire supply of Mandrakes." She looks around the room, her eyes barely flicking over the three students. "I don't know what they're planning, but you must hide them, transfigure them, destroy them --"
Professor Sprout leaps up, as do Ginny, Neville, and Luna.
"Longbottom," she says sharply. "You know where they are -- grab three pairs of earmuffs and bring them to me -- I have a cupboard, here: expandable and impenetrable. I was afraid something like this would happen. Minerva, if you could help me tighten the wards around it, please --"
Neville is moving before Ginny or Luna turn around. He thrusts two pairs of earmuffs into their hands and heads for the back of the greenhouse, turning the corner around the Venomous Tentacula and brushing aside an asphodel bush to reveal several rows of pots, all of varying sizes, the bushes springing from them trembling precariously.
"They're going to try to get out the minute they realise someone's moving them," he tells them, "so move fast. They're all of different sizes, and ages, so there's no telling if they'll kill you or knock you out, and obviously, we don't want to know. Ready?"
And with that they start seizing pot after pot, fleeing back and forth between Professor Sprout's cupboard and the nook behind the asphodel plant, trying not to trip over moving roots and doing rather odd pirouettes to avoid crashing into each other. Within fifteen frenzied minutes, Luna is shoving the last two mandrakes into the cupboard and stumbling backwards, dirt in her hair, feeling dizzy. Neville catches her arm as the two teachers look at them sharply.
"Discretion!" Professor McGonagall barks, her pointed hat trembling.
"Go on," says Professor Sprout, wiping her forehead. "The last thing you three need is to be seen here, now, by Professor Snape and his... colleagues."
And with that, the three flee the greenhouse, only narrowly missing Snape and the Carrows.
They run until they reach the edge of the forest, panting hard, and they sink into the grass, their hearts still beating too wildly to speak with any coherency. After a moment Luna lies down and spreads her arms in the grass; Neville and Ginny follow suit, all three of them sighing heavily.
"Well," Ginny says, "I think that counts as fighting back, doesn't it?"
Neville and Luna both murmur their assent. Then Neville props himself on his elbows and looks at them, frowning hard.
"Listen," he says, "what if -- what if we start the DA again?"
"The DA?"
"Yeah, I mean -- we could use the Room of Requirement again, and I'm sure we all have our old galleons -- or we could make new ones -- and, well. We could show Snape that we're not going to take this lying down." He pauses. "Dumbledore's Army, remember?"
There's a heavy silence following his words, and Ginny and Luna prop themselves up on their elbows too, looking at him carefully.
"Harry would be proud, knowing we kept the DA going," Ginny says softly.
Luna, on the other hand, stares at Neville intently, her pale-blue eyes wide.
"Er -- Luna?"
And then, quite without warning, quite without pretence, Luna sits up, leans forward, and kisses Neville promptly on the mouth.
His face burns, and Ginny collapses on the ground again, burying her face in her arms and giggling wildly.
"I -- what was that for?"
Luna shrugs.
"It just felt like the moment to do it." She pauses. "You did like it, didn't you?"
Neville looks flustered, but a smile tugs at his lips.
"I -- yeah." He grins and puffs his chest out, a bit. "Yeah, I did. Thanks, Luna."
And he takes her hand, and Luna takes Ginny's, and Ginny does her best to fight giggles all the way back to the castle.
- - -
Feedback is always appreciated, and as always, feel free to friend this journal. :)