Author's Note: This is the last chapter. I hope you enjoyed the story—please review!

No one quite like you

Half an hour later, Neville was sitting at the table with Dean and Seamus, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting not too far away. He felt extremely nervous and kept making involuntary movements at breakfast.

Dean and Seamus were eying their friend with great apprehension. Finally, after nearly ten minutes of watching Neville having something close to seizures, Dean decided to speak up.

"Neville, is there anything wrong?"

"Yeah, you've been extremely twitchy all breakfast," Seamus chimed in. "And you're breathing heavily."

Dean nodded gravely. "Any… any problems with the heart?" he asked casually.

At this remark, Neville nearly upset his bowl of porridge and slopped half of his milk down his robes.

"What? Why?" he squawked.

Dean and Seamus shared an uncomfortable look. They were right! Neville was—dare they think it—actually attracted to their horrible, hook-nosed professor. That was nearly too obscene to think about, and just when Dean was on the verge of blurting his and Seamus's theory about Professor Snape, there was a loud squawk, and the post arrived.

With another wail, Neville gave a violent twitch that did upset his bowl of porridge, the contents of which splashed on Dean and Seamus and silenced any further accusations.

Within seconds, Neville picked out the owl he had entrusted his task circling among the other owls, and watched its progression as it made its way towards Luna, who was deeply immersed in The Quibbler, not even noticing the corner of her magazine absorbing the milk from her cereal. The owl dropped his letter straight on top of The Quibbler, and serenely, Luna picked it up and glanced at the name on the letter, as though doubting it was hers. Then, after nearly a full minute, Luna seemed to comprehend that the letter was to her, and her protuberant eyes widened in what was evidently shock. The small, third-year girl Neville had noticed in Potions class yesterday, who was now sitting across from Luna, noticed her surprise and leaned in curiously.

"What is it, Luna?" Neville saw her mouth form.

-x-

Luna's dreams that night were a muddled flurry that involved new dance shoes and a flock of Gisted Dimplefugs. Right before she woke up, there was a flash of a vision of a specific person's face—and when she woke up, she had no recollection of the dream. Until breakfast, that is.

She was reading The Quibbler as she ate breakfast as usual, the same cereal, the same amount of pumpkin juice, the same amount of eggs—but the one thing that was not the same that morning was the untimely arrival of a letter landing right on the centerfold of her magazine.

Her father never usually sent her post, Luna reflected, and he was her only correspondent; therefore, the letter must not be hers. Calmly, she picked the letter up and looked for the recipient's name, in order to return it to the proper owner. After turning the parchment around several times, she finally realized that the name was probably on the opposite side and turned it around. There, she found the inscription:

to Luna

Luna stared at it for nearly a full minute. That was extremely odd. Who would ever send her something? Her dad was usually too busy with printing Quibblers, and of course, her mother was already dead… and with a lack of friends outside of Hogwarts, who would have sent this to her? The only plausible explanation was that it had to have been someone from within Hogwarts. But… who?

"What is it, Luna?" her friend Vera Yougherty asked, leaning over the table curiously.

Luna shook her head, indicating that she did not know; vaguely noticing her fingers trembling slightly, she unfolded the parchment and read.

You taught me how to dance
And you taught me how to believe
I've learned many things;
That I should trust and not deceive—
I know I haven't known you long.
At first I didn't know what to do
But right now I know—I believe…
That I think I'm starting to love you.

Vera, who had read the poem backwards from the table, nearly toppled off the bench in excitement.

"That sounds almost like it's a love letter or something," she breathed from the floor.

"There's more," Luna murmured. And indeed there was, written in extremely cramped print near the bottom.

Luna, I've never met anyone who was ever like you before. And it's weird; I haven't felt this way before either. We have a class together in a few minutes, right after breakfast. And I need to tell you something.

Luna set her chin into her hands, thinking. What was her first-period class? Ever since that potion had hit her, she felt as though she could never remember much of—of anything, to tell you the truth. Then, her dream came back to her with the force of a stampeding troll, along with the remembrance of her first-period class:

Potions.

-x-

"Neville!"

Dean's sharp voice interrupted Neville's reverie, causing him to stop staring at Luna, who was gazing at the letter in her hands, and to revert his attention back to his two friends, who were currently looking at him worriedly.

"Is there something you want to tell Dean and me?" Seamus put in, not sounding rather unlike parents interrogating their children.

Neville sighed. They were going to find it out sooner or later, weren't they? So he decided to tell them part of the truth, if not reluctantly.

"Well," Neville said hesitantly, looking at the ceiling (which was currently partly cloudy), "there… there is," he admitted.

Looking nauseous, Dean forced himself to not look at Seamus out of respect for his awkward friend. "And what would that be?" he asked in a controlled voice.

"Something's gonna happen in Potions class," he mumbled. And with that being said, he stood up abruptly, unwilling to stay any longer, and went up to the Dormitory to get his books.

This time, Dean and Seamus couldn't resist sharing horrified looks.

"He's going to confess his love to Snape!" Seamus spat out, pressing his hands to the sides of his face. "We have to stop him! Before he dies of embarrassment or something!"

There was a pause.

"After we finish breakfast, of course," Seamus added, continuing to shovel oatmeal into his mouth. Dean nodded his approval and began to quaff down pumpkin juice.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione gave Dean and Seamus brief, strange looks, and returned back to their breakfast.

-x-

When Neville arrived at the dungeons, he looked around and noticed that he was the first one there—something that he'd never done before, that was to be sure. At Herbology, maybe, but never Potions. Standing outside the door, he began to fidget. What the heck was he doing? What was he playing at, getting himself into this? This was very unlike Neville, and that was very sure as well. A minute passed, and more of his classmates began milling around the corridor. And sure enough, when Seamus and Dean rounded the corner, they saw Neville standing closest to the dungeon door, looking extremely nervous, as though he was just about ready to drop down and die.

"Seamus, why is he standing at the front of the line? He's never early for potions. Never," Dean emphasized.

"I don't know, but it must have something to do with what's happening," Seamus muttered nervously. Further plotting was forestalled as the door to the dungeons swung open, Snape's voice floating through it.

"Class is about to begin. Enter silently."

Neville literally leaped inside the classroom, as an effect of his nervousness. Dean and Seamus witnessed this event with growing discomfort.

Once most of the class had settled, Neville looked around the dungeon, searching for Luna—but she wasn't inside yet. Why would that be? She was at breakfast… could she have possibly eaten a funny whelk and have been forced to go to the Hospital Wing?

Luna was about to be late for class. Sure enough, she was walking down the corridors leading to the Potions dungeons much slower than usual, re-reading the letter as she ambled down her way.

She had taught a lot of people how to dance. Sure enough, they seemed uncomfortable with it, but a lot of people were taught the many progressions of the Porgapheys' Mating Dance or the Drough Quadrille—so who could this possibly be?

Finally reaching the dungeon, she put away the letter and took a deep, apprehensive breath. She pushed open the dungeon doors and stepped inside just as the late bell rang.

"Nearly late, Lovegood," Snape snapped. "Take your seat. Now, I want all of your essays—"

"Wait," Neville said quietly, standing up.

Snape stared at Neville as though he could not quite believe what he was seeing. Overcoming the shock, Snape's expression turned stony once more.

"Longbottom, sit down."

Instead of following Snape's orders, Neville stepped a full pace from his cauldron into the aisle beside it. There was a slight buzz coming from the whole of the classroom—it was widely known that Neville was very afraid of Snape.

In the back of the classroom, Dean and Seamus were grimacing. "He's going to do it," Seamus hissed.

"I n-n-need to say s-something," Neville stammered.

"On the count of three," Dean whispered.

Seamus nodded. "One…"

Snape looked extremely livid. "Ten points from Gryffindor! Sit down this instant, Longbottom!"

"Two…"

"N-not yet."

Snape's eyebrows reached for the ceiling. "Ten more points from—"

"THREE!"

Dean and Seamus both tackled Neville to the ground, clamping his mouth shut. Neville writhed violently. After a few minutes (Snape too stunned to reduce points), Neville shook of Seamus's hand that was around his mouth.

"Get off!"

"Don't do it!" Dean roared, seizing Neville by the shoulders of his robes and shaking him violently. "Don't confess your love to Snape! He isn't your type! He is the wrong gender and age for you! YOU'LL HAVE TIME TO LOVE SOMEONE ELSE!"

"Yes! What he said!" Seamus wailed desperately. "Give him up! Please! This is disgusting all of us!"

As if hoping the rest of the people in the dungeon would support him, Seamus gestured around to his classmates and Snape, all of whom stared blankly at the three struggling boys. Crickets could be heard (which was a strange thing, as all the dried crickets in Snape's store were all dead and were physically unable to do such a thing).

"What are you talking about?" Neville choked out, attempting to shake Dean and Seamus off of him.

"YOU FANCY SNAPE!" Seamus yelled maniacally.

The only sound that followed was a retching noise that came from Snape's desk.

"No I don't!" Neville blustered, disgusted to the extreme at such a thought. "I wasn't going to confess my love to him at all! Not… not to him, at least."

There was an audible sigh and Snape's head appeared from behind his desk. "Oh," he said. "Well in that case, fifty points from—"

"Who were you going to confess your love to, then?" Seamus demanded, seizing Neville by the neck of his robes and shaking him there as well.

"What's with all the shaking?" Neville asked, flapping his hands femininely in Seamus's face. "Get off me!"

Dean and Seamus obliged, then helped Neville to his feet.

"Sorry," they said simultaneously. There was more silence.

Neville stared at Dean and Seamus in turn and then made a slight grimace. Pushing past them, he made his way to Luna, who was still standing beside the dungeon door. Vera Yougherty made a small sound that must have indicated disappointment, which no one except herself heard.

At first, Luna stared at Neville blankly, as did the whole classroom—the people in it, not the classroom itself, that would be ridiculous—even Snape did, slightly fascinated, remembering what he had read the night before. Finally, Luna broke the silence, holding up the letter.

"You wrote this?" she asked disbelievingly.

Neville hesitated for a heartbeat of a second, and then nodded.

"I'm really sorry," he mumbled. "But I just know that whenever I'm around you, I feel more confident about myself. I feel better. And it's… it's because of you, I reckon."

Luna's cheeks pinked. "What do you mean?"

"It looks like we were wrong," Dean whispered to Seamus as everyone else looked on.

"We stand corrected," Seamus agreed, looking rather teary.

"I mean that you make me feel different, happier," Neville said, his voice ebbing to a whisper. "There's no one quite like you."

Luna's eyes glinted; tears were specking the corners of her eyes. "I've never met anyone quite like you either," were the last things she said before Neville did something that was both very brave and stupid, something he thought he'd never do—he kissed her, right in front of the whole class and Professor Snape, who seemed to snap out of something.

"Longbottom! Lovegood! Detention to both of you," he snarled. "All of you, take your seats."

There was an outcry from both the Gryffindor and Ravenclaws, both Houses finding the scene surprisingly cute. Amidst the roar, Snape could pick out yells of "Why? Why?"

Snape sneered. "Longbottom and Lovegood are out of line; class has begun and they refuse to pay attention." Turning on his heel, his robes billowing out behind him, he strode to the chalkboard and took out his wand. "That and, I'm allowed to be an evil Slytherin bastard."

As Neville and Luna returned to their seats, Snape had his back turned, referring to a book as he checked against the blackboard. Luna caught Neville's eye and smiled; then she looked around her, stroking the air around her as though feeling for something… both of them felt so good that she could've sworn she could feel a Gisted Dimplefug fly into her.

For all he was worth, Neville felt as though he'd been stampeded by a herd of them himself.

Grinning to himself, Neville pulled his cauldron closer to him, not feeling even an inkling of fear or apprehension at the difficulty of the lesson that lay ahead of him. There really was no one quite like her, he thought. No one quite like her at all.

finite incantatem.