AN: So this one is a lot shorter, definitely a drabble. I confess, I really do love Neville. I'll probably write a lot more for him and Hermione in the future :]
Like always, a poster has been made for the last chapter. And thank you to everyone reading!
Title: From First Sight
Summary: Neville contemplates his feelings for the girl who helped him on the train.
Genre/s: Romance | Friendship
Characters: [Hermione G. & Neville L.]
Rating: K
Warning/s: None (I think)
Words: 542
He remembered meeting her for the first time.
She had been in her school robes already, and it had made him worry about whether he should change too. Her hair was wild and frizzy, her teeth a little big for her mouth, but he thought she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.
Neville hadn't had many friends growing up with his grandmother. She had sometimes set up play dates with other children, but the ones he'd even vaguely liked only played with him a few times.
He was all right with being a loner; it gave him plenty of time with his plants.
But upon seeing her, suddenly he had wanted her to be his friend. So he had went over to her, had asked her if she needed help putting her trunk into the overhead shelf, and she had offered to share her compartment with him.
She was so lovely, and a bit overwhelming, he had decided. She went into a long speech about how excited she was about Hogwarts and finding out she was a witch and then she asked him lots of question after finding out he was a pure-blood.
He hadn't minded though. She was earnestly interested in what he had to say, even if he didn't sound particularly smart. She listened to him ramble about plants and she even seemed curious when he mentioned his pet toad Trevor.
And then when he couldn't find the toad to show her, she immediately offered to help find him and took control while he panicked. She had told him to go search a number of other compartments and ask people if they'd seen Trevor, while she did the same.
Despite not finding the amphibian, they had journeyed back to their carriage and she assured him that Trevor would turn up eventually. She was right, as usual.
The two of them hadn't spent an awful lot of time together after that, not until Fifth Year when she set up Dumbledore's Army, though she always helped him in lessons—especially Potions. And when she was petrified in Second Year, he visited her bedside many times to simply sit beside her and hold her frozen hand until Madam Pomphrey shooed him out.
She was never mean to him, never made fun of him, and he liked her all the more for it.
He had thought a great deal about asking her to the Yule Ball in Fourth Year, and had even spent ages gathering the courage to do it. When she declined due to already having had a date, he tried not to be disappointed and told himself that she wouldn't have said yes anyway.
Neville wasn't the kind of guy who girls fell for. He was the 'good friend', the one who was always there, but not boyfriend material. And for the most part, he was okay with that.
But sometimes, it didn't half irritate him.
For all those years he'd fancied her, ever since first sight, she had never looked twice at him. He knew it was all a lost cause after how upset she got at Ron's relationship with Lavender. Clearly, she already liked someone.
So he ignored his feelings and focused on his plants. They always liked him.
