Hey everybody this is my first fic, so it's kind of experimental. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

Neville Longbottom had never been particularly brave. Or so he thought. In comparison to his fellow fifth years, he considered himself downright cowardly. He wished he were brave like Harry was, or intelligent like Hermione, or even spontaneous like Ron. He observed the trio from the corner of his eyes as he absentmindedly added a pinch of powdered dragon's claw to his simmering cauldron. Ron seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument with Hermione who was lecturing him exasperatedly about something to do with the potion they were currently supposed to be brewing.

He looked away distractedly from Ron's scarlet face as his cauldron started hissing and emitting sparks. His assignment partner, Seamus Finnigan, jumped away with a yell as the cauldron twisted into a shapeless blob and the seething liquid spread out over the floor. Two seconds later, Snape, Neville's worst fear, was breathing down his neck and had him by the cuff of his neck.

"You blithering fool. Detention. And fifty points from Gryffindor. Clean this mess up."

Twenty minutes and several attempts at a cleaning spell later, a red faced Neville emerged from the Potions room followed by the raucous laughter of the Slytherins.

"Hey Longbottom, you'd make a great death eater you know, you could scare your enemies by threatening to make them sit in the same room while you brew a potion!"

Draco Malfoy and his cronies howled with laughter as he dropped his books and clamored to pick them up.

"Leave him alone, Malfoy!" Hermione interrupted.

"Or what?"

She pulled out her wand and the movement was mirrored by him and the rest of the Slytherins in the potions corridor. The Gryffindors stepped up with their wands drawn and after a few beats of intense silence, both parties pocketed their wands, declaring an unspoken truce. For the moment, anyway.

"Later"

With that rejoinder, the Slytherins filed out of the corridor followed a little later by the Gryffindors.

Neville felt miserable. Not only had he earned himself detention and lost fifty points for his house, he had also very nearly started a fight between the rival houses. And to think that was only the first period.

Two weeks later, Neville was sitting in the library perusing One hundred and one rare magical herbsby Agnes Althorp when he was joined by Harry, Hermione, Ron and Luna.

"Hey mate, what you reading?" Ron made a face as he caught sight of the title. "I could think of one hundred and one things I'd rather be doing."

"You know, daddy found a rare herb the other day. He published it in the Quibbler too." Luna said dreamily. "It's very fascinating. If you sprinkle a little gnome's blood on it, it becomes ginormous and…"

Everybody exchanged amused glances and started up a new topic, while Luna continued her tirade, unaware that she was talking to herself.

Deprived of his privacy, Neville made an excuse and browsed through a few random shelves of books. He stopped in front of the magical creatures category. Why I didn't die when the Augerey cried, Gadding with Ghouls, Travels with Trolls…..

"Don't worry about it, I've sent the letter. That idiot Potter and his stupid friends will never suspect it's a trick. Man, I'd love to see their faces when they realize what we have in store for them."

Neville stopped, silent, as he listened to the familiar voice of Draco Malfoy. Neville was nobody's fool. Malfoy was upto something and Neville intended to put a stop to it.

Neville examined the facts he had at hand. Quite obviously, Malfoy was planning a prank on Harry and it seemed the first phase of his plan involved a letter. If he had already sent it then, the letter must already have arrived. His suspicions were confirmed as a second later, an owl rapped its beak on the library window for attention. Making sure nobody was looking, he opened the window and tried to swipe the letter from the owl. It screeched angrily and bit his hand.

"Ow! Stupid owl! Silencio!" The owl let out a feeble squawk before it shut up entirely and watched menacingly as Neville liberated it of the scroll tied around its leg and shut the window.

He opened the letter and read it's contents.

Hey Harry,

I was wondering if you'd meet me tonight in the Trophy room at midnight. It's been so long since we've talked properly.

Love,

Cho Chang.

Neville gaped, astonished. He burst into laughter as he imagined Draco sitting and writing a love letter to Harry.

So this is what he'd been talking about. Well, Neville was going to go instead of Harry to pay a nice surprise visit to Malfoy and his friends.

Don't say I never did anything for you Harry.

He paused long enough to pick up Self-Defensive Spellwork and Jinxes for the jinxed and then escaped to the relative safety of his dorm.

Ten minutes before midnight, Neville pulled on his cloak and started towards the Trophy room.

He remembered back in first year, when Harry had snuck out to that very room, another trick by Malfoy. Really, did this guy even have any imagination?

He stopped in front on the door and lit his wand tip.

It drew the light away from his face, making it indiscernible to anybody who looked directly at him.

"Potter."

"Malfoy." Neville said in a passable imitation of Harry.

"Fell for my trick then didn't you? You're even stupider than I thought. Petrificius Totalus!"

The spell missed Neville by an inch but his face was illuminated by it's light as it passed by.

"What the hell Longbottom? What are you doing here?" he snarled.

"I intercepted that letter you sent. Not so tough now are you?"

He screamed Furnunculus at the same time that Malfoy yelled Immobulus.

Both spells missed and the two started a full fledged duel. Just as Neville, to his amazement, felt he was gaining the upper hand, a voice behind him yelled Stupefy and then everything was dark.

When Neville woke, he discovered two very unpleasant facts. One, there were silver ropes binding him and two, there was a very disgusting rag in his mouth that he imagined tasted like Severus Snape's towel. He barely managed to contain his gag reflex.

In the background he could hear the low murmur of voices and he strained his ears to listen, not daring to open his eyes.

"Not awake yet…Potter…..Dark Lord…...Stupid imbecile…..we're all in trouble now.."

"Oye." Somebody poked him harshly and he pretended to still be unconscious. Somebody had mentioned Voldemort? What the heck were they talking about? Why would a school prank involve that crazy nutter of an evil wizard?

"The stupid lump still hasn't woken up. That was one stunner you sent Goyle."

"What are we going to do with him? Erase his memory?"

"No. By now, the whole school's noticed he's missing, and if we send him back somebody like Dumbledore could always revive his memory and there'd be hell to pay for that. I say, we use him as bait. Potter has somewhat of a superwizard complex. Blaise, Nott, make sure he doesn't escape."

He heard the shuffling of footsteps and a door slamming and Neville Longbottom wondered exactly what he had gotten himself into.

So this one is really short but if it gets a good response then I'll continue it and make the chapters longer.

- Annevader-