Genderbent Luna/Neville, a deeply belated Valentine'sfic. I'm just going all out, recently aren't I? Well, Samurai should be up sometime this week, fear not :)
Otherwise,
Enjoy!
The little plant just wouldn't grow right—and by that, Nelly meant glow right. Sure the flowers had grown into perfect little hearts, and she could just see the red pigment which was supposed to be glowing merrily. These will never work, she thought to herself with tears in her eyes as she set down her trowel and quietly disappeared from Professor Sprout's greenhouse. The round old man with a white walrus mustachio had said he'd never seen one of these plants glowing for real, but that she was welcome to try and grow one—consider it an exchange for "Passable," on Potions being bullied out of the mean spinster, Professor Septima Snape.
Nelly didn't want that, but Professor Sprout had insisted since there were a few complex nutrient potions that Nelly had had to brew to grow the little failed plant at all. Nelly just wanted—well, she wanted, just—well—just—the tears threatened to fall and so she walked as fast as she could away from the greenhouses and towards the school. The little plant had four days before the entire point of growing it was gone.
She refused to think much about the wretched little sprout for the rest of the day, only returning once a day for the next few in the hopes of maybe making it glow even just once-it didn't even have to last for Professors Sprout or Snape to see it, just enough for her to know that it could be done at this point. But the plant was very stubbornly green, still only hinting at the brilliant red shade it was rumored to take on. Not even Helmut Granger had been able to get it to do anything, which is when Nelly really started to give up. Helmut was a genius, and if he couldn't make it work, then it probably wouldn't ever.
On the fourth morning she chose to skip getting up early to tend it. It had hurt her feelings, so she would hurt its. Instead she got up and put her hair into pigtails, little short ones at the nape of her neck to keep her neck cool and her hair tidy, and prepared to go to the dungeons to begin working on her final potion for Potions. It was weeks early, but it would take her weeks to get it right and there was no way that failed little growth out in the greenhouses was going to earn her any credit from the harsh older woman with her long falls of greasy hair and wickedly hooked nose—Snape looked like a witch from that Muggle book Helmut had showed them all once. Well, minus the warts and the hunched back. Professor Snape always stood ramrod straight no matter what the situation, and sat the same way. Helen Potter, the girl who lived, and her friend Ronnie—Veronica, but there were eight Veronicas in their year, so Potter's friend was Ronnie—said it was because Snape had a massive ram up her arse.
Nelly didn't know or care either way, she just knew that Snape expected results of the finest kind.
When the bells rang to announce the breakfast hour was starting, Nelly properly cooled her potion down and disposed of it before cleaning up. Sixth year had been going awfully so far, she thought as she looked at the viscous pink goo slithering down the drain—this potion was supposed to be a vivid sky blue at this stage.
"I think those Nargles in your hair are what made your potion go all wonky, Nelly Longbottom," a boy's tenor voice said from the door of the classroom. Nelly took a deep breath before she turned around to look at Luca Lovegood. Everyone else thought that he was mental—what with his batty old mother running that batty old Quibbler—but Nelly adored him. Luca wafted through the corridors like he was half-Veela, but then again not. Half-Veela and half-ghost, then, with his long blonde hair and his pale eyes and his much-more-than-silent appearances and disappearances around the school.
Well, that's fully what Nelly expected to see as she turned around. Instead she saw a much different Luca Lovegood. His nearly white hair was lit to a nearly strawberry blonde by the little potted plant he held in his hands, and his skin was similarly touched with color. It was her failure plant!
"I went to the greenhouses this morning to help clear out the whizzbibbles for Professor Sprout—Mother says they are really nasty in greenhouses in late winter and early spring. I asked him where I ought to start," he said, and then trailed off to take a few steps into the potions classroom, weaving around the few nasty spills Nelly had had earlier in the morning. Nelly waited for him to finish—just because Luca trailed off from time to time didn't mean he was finished speaking.
"And he said that if anything in his greenhouse had whizzbibbles—although he said whozabobbles, I think he misheard me—it would be your project for Professor Snape. He showed me to your plant which was glowing so prettily, and after seeing it said that I had to take it to show you immediately—"
"How did you make it do that, Luca!" Nelly reached out almost to yank the plant out from Luca's hands, wanting her failed little project under her care but at the same time this amazing, daft man had made it finally live—she would never have to listen to Snape whine in her high, nasal tones about the color of today's failed potion ever again after this.
"Oh, well, unless you use water that Flingums bathe in to water them, they won't glow unless they're exposed to a pair of people made for each other," Luca said with his wandering, wan smile. Nelly froze, staring up at his face. He stared back while his smile changed a little into something filled with a little more wonder after a moment before crossing the rest of the distance between them and handing the little plant to Nelly—the flowers glowed a brighter red for an instant when his hands brushed hers. His eyes weren't exactly focused on her, or anywhere near her, but neither were they far away. It was just Luca being himself, utterly and completely. Nelly blushed almost as red as her wild-success of a plant. She had no idea what a Flingum was, but apparently hadn't managed to run into any water one had bathed in.
"Now it will only go out when one of us is gone for good," he said, "Thank you, Flannella Longbottom, for such a wonderful surprise." He patted her hands once as they held the vase tightly before raising a hand and grabbing her nose and pinching it shut gently. "Blow, like you're clearing your ears." Nelly blew, knowing that Luca knew a great deal more about tiny, obtuse and obscure magical creatures than a lot of people would. Besides, did believing him hurt anyone or anything?
"Can't have my girl's ears full of whozabobbles," he said with another one of his wan smiles before wandering out of the potions classroom. This was just what she wanted for a Valentine's Day, for Luca Lovegood to notice that she was madly in love with him. And now she had a plant that basically was glowing a nice healthy red because they were soulmates or something—this was far better than she could have ever hoped.
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