Disclaimer: I own nothing but two cookies. Well, now one cookie.
You'd have to be an idiot to think that she likes you.
Neville Longbottom shook the thought out of his head for the millionth time.
I know! He replied, frustrated.
His eyes glanced across the room to where the object of his thoughts sat. Luna Lovegood, or Loony as some called her, pushed a wisp of her hair behind her ears as she read The Quibbler once again. The sound of Luna's ethereal laughter drifted across the Great Hall to Neville's ears and he smiled.
You'd be an idiot to think that she likes you. The voice had returned.
Luna looked up from her upside-down magazine to see Neville looking at her once again. She smiled in her special way and turned a page. Neville turned away as fast as he could.
There you go again, but this time she caught you, his mind said.
Another laugh came to his ears, this one closer. He looked up to find Luna staring down at him.
"Hello, Neville," she said, plopping down next to him in an unceremonious manner.
"Hey, Luna."
"What are you thinking about?" she asked, smile still dancing upon her lips.
"Nothing. Everything."
"We've really narrowed it down."
Neville forced a laugh. "I guess."
"What do you have there?" Luna asked, digging up another question.
"Oh, this?" Neville held up the forgotten ball that he held in his hand. "It's a Remembrall."
"The smoke is clear," she stated. "You haven't forgotten anything."
She always could state the obvious. "Yes."
Silence engulfed the twosome once again. "Can I see it?"
"Sure," Neville replied, thankful for something to do.
Luna held the ball up so close to her face that her eyes crossed. The smoke remained clear. "I haven't forgotten anything either."
"You never forget anything."
"No, I just know how to fool the Sharkles in the smoke. I'm sure I've forgotten something."
"What are Sharkles?"
Luna's eyes widened, as if she could not believe that anyone could not know what a Sharkle was. "Oh, you can't see them, but when they aren't contained, they burrow into people's minds and make them forget what they were going to say."
Neville opened his mouth to respond, but was too enraptured by her delicate face to say anything comprehensible. "Ahh."
Luna looked up at him concernedly. "Did one get you?"
"What?"
"A Sharkle." Luna's eyes, magnified by her reading glasses, went cross-eyed as she looked for cracks in the glass.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because you opened your mouth to say something and then shut it."
"No, I said 'Ahh'."
"Ahh what?"
"Ahh nothing."
Luna let out such a loud laugh that a few students turned to see what was going on. "You're funny!"
Neville forced a chuckle but fell back into the beauty of Luna's face. She looked back at him now and it felt like something clicked between them. Luna licked her lips. Neville was almost sure that she was going to kiss him when—
You'd be an idiot to think that she likes you.
He jerked his head and looked away as the bell rang through the Great Hall. Students everywhere began moving and the moment was broken. Luna stood, pushed her reading glasses up her nose and said, "See you."
Neville managed to mutter some response back before grabbing his books and running to class.
The school day was finally over and Neville was walking down the staircase. Snow was falling outside the windows and, as he turned to watch it, his bag ripped open. Surprised, he stumbled and fell pell-mell down the staircase, books flying after him. He heard laughter behind him and turned to find Draco Malfoy and his cronies looming over him.
"What's the matter, Longbottom, can't stay on your feet?" drawled Malfoy.
Neville regained his footing resolutely, turning his back on the blonde boy.
"What? Why don't you stand and fight? Your parents would have. Oh, wait! Last time they stood and fought, it landed them in Mungo's!"
Neville turned red and whirled on Malfoy, livid with anger.
"Oh, mad are we? No wonder. I think insanity must run in the family."
Crabbed and Goyle sniggered as Neville looked around him for an exit.
"Oh, looking for Potty? He can't save you this time. He's busy someplace else, I think. A little Weasel has him a bit preoccupied."
Neville was reaching breaking point and Malfoy knew it.
"Scared? Going to run? Where's your Gryffindor courage?"
Neville drew his wand, wracking his mind for any hex he could think of.
"You'd be an idiot to try it. Oh, wait! You are an idiot!"
The blood that had been pounding in Neville's ears suddenly drained. The words resounded in his mind, over and over again. You are an idiot. You are an idiot.
"YES!" Neville yelled. Sheathing his wand, he turned and ran top speed away from Malfoy. In the distance he heard the boy's laughter.
"That's right, Longbottom, run. That's the smart thing to do! RUN, LONGBOTTOM, RUN!"
Neville barely paid any attention as he bolted down the hallway, looking desperately for a wisp of wavy hair or large blue eyes. He heard the sound of ethereal laughter as he rounded another corner just in time to see Luna slip outside into the falling snow. Pulling his robes closer, Neville followed her.
She was laughing, laughing, a taunting sort of torture, but he loved her for it. He could not see her through the snow, but the sound of her laugh led him through the winds to the greenhouse. Before him, he distinctly heard the words, "Mandrake cry," followed by a door opening. As it closed, he pushed himself through the small opening to find Luna standing above him.
"Hello, Neville, I thought you might be following me," her giggle echoed in the greenhouse once again and Neville stood.
"I have something to say to you."
"Did the Sharkle leave your brain?"
"I think it might have." If Neville had any Gryffindor courage in him at all, he drew upon it now. "Luna, I'm an idiot."
A quizzical expression appeared on Luna's brow as she laugh quietly to herself. "No, you aren't!"
Neville was still trying to figure out exactly what made him say those words exactly. "I've been telling myself I'd be an idiot to like you because you'd never like me so why should I bother getting my hopes up?" he said in one breath at top speed.
Luna's worried eyes cleared and she looked directly at him. "Then, Neville Longbottom, you are an idiot."
"I told you that," he replied. "I mean, I told you that I was an idiot, but you said I wasn't, and then you said I was."
"Precisely," she answered.
"What?"
She smiled at him softly. "Am I to assume that you are an idiot because you like me?"
"Well, that wasn't what I said but…yeah." Neville looked down at her awkwardly.
"You are such an idiot!"
"I think we've established that, Luna."
"Say it again."
"I think we've established that."
"No."
"What, Luna?"
"That."
"What?"
"Luna!"
"Oh. Luna."
"Again."
"Luna."
"Again."
"What's the point of this anyway?"
"Again," she insisted, jutting her bottom lip out.
Neville could stand it no longer. He captured her lips with his in a lingering kiss.
"Luna," he whispered.
"Yes, Mr. Longbottom?"
"I'm an idiot."
"Oh, good."