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How It Was Supposed To Be

Chapter 10

Neville had absolutely no idea how in the world Seamus Finnegan had managed to sneak firewhiskey into the Gryffindor common room, and he wasn't alone. No one could figure it out, but most were too drunk to even try to speak, let alone do anything more complex than that. However, Seamus's explanation for the incredibly immoral, and more importantly, illegal alcohol was rather simple and not helpful in the least.

"I'm Irish. It's St. Patty's day. Let's just leave it at that for your explanation, enjoy the party and stop being such a damn stick in the mud, Longbottom." That was the response that Neville had received. Or, when speaking to someone he didn't particularly like or want to have a conversation with, "It's a party, please just go ahead and have a drink already."

This is most definitely why Gryffindor house is known for its parties, Neville thought as he sat down an armchair in front of the fireplace. As he looked all around the usually reasonably under-control common room, he noticed that tonight it was as far away from controlled as anything could possibly be.

Quite a few students that Neville didn't care to watch or even recognize were glued together at the mouth on the couch beside his chair, and Lavender Brown was dancing on top of one of the chess tables. Though he saw almost the entire school in the common room, besides any Slytherins, of course, he could not for the life of him find Luna. Figures, the only person I want to be here isn't here. As if on some sort of twisted cue, he hears Luna's slurring, stuttering, severely alcohol affected voice.

"Pigfarts it i-is real, you k-know. It really, it really honestly, is, like a whole lot of some super-duper really true truth. IT IS REAL! A-and if you're a, if you are g-good, a good enough s-student, t-then Rumbleroar, he lets you, he lets you, ride a-around on his back. Because he's a lion, a lion, and he can talk, he's a lion who can talk. Pigfarts, Pigfarts, here I come. Pigfarts, Pigfarts, yum yum yum." Oh my Rowling, Luna is absolutely hammered.

However, Luna was far from the only Hogwarts student who was far too drunk to walk or even form coherent words that night. A little ways away from where Luna was standing, none other than Harry Potter himself was as smashed as his loony Ravenclaw companion.

"I c-can't defeat thee, so please don't eat me! Dragon, come on dragon, please will you just level with me buddy? I'm Harry freaking Potter! You don't understand I'm a legend man, to all of you. Everyone, I-I defeated the dark lord when I just was a baby, and I only have this little scar. He tried to kill me, but I was so damn awesome as a tiny little boy that he couldn't! Isn't that hilarious, Ron, it is really just so funny. I am just the funniest person ever, right; I know that I am so do not even try to try to start to argue with me right now."

Luckily, well lucky for Neville anyways, Ron had decided have at least half of a brain and abstain from the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Well, in all honesty, they really could not be classified as festivities. They could, however, be classified as one giant teenage hormone driven, drunken mess of what Neville assumed was supposed to be a celebration of some sort at one point in time.

I really should have gone with Hermione to the library tonight; this is getting to be too much to stand. In all honesty, Neville knew that he would be the only one sober at this particular event, especially because Hermione had chosen not to attend for some reason.

However, he didn't know or expect the sheer amount of alcohol his classmates could consume in one period of… How long has it been since this horrid thing started? An hour, is that really it? It was truly amazing to see how drunk a group of students, especially students with far too much access to booze and containing extreme levels of boredom, could get in the space of one hour.

Though Neville had only been in the common room for an hour, nothing compared to the nearly five hours a night he had spent in the very same room studying for all of his final exams last year, he had definitely had enough of Seamus's little "party".

Slowly ascending from the squishy armchair he had been occupying for a good part of the celebration, Neville pushed through the throngs of people filling Gryffindor tower. Trying too hard not to knock anyone over who wasn't falling over by themselves on his way, he slowly walked in the direction of the stairs that led to the dormitories. Although Neville didn't notice Luna looking his way, she saw that he was going upstairs. Against her better judgment, but everyone does seem to believe that I'm too drunk to think, Luna followed him up the stairwell.

Neville wasn't planning on turning around, as he was leaving. However, he just barely picked up Seamus's voice over the sound of the blazing music, and what he said simply couldn't be ignored by anyone, much less the subject of the horrible statement.

"Use protection, Longbottom. Wouldn't want anything too bad to happen to our little Luna, now would we?" Many years of terrible bullying, most of it by one Draco Malfoy, had taught Neville to ignore the derogatory comments he and his friends received on an almost daily basis. So, as was so natural to him by now, Neville just walked up the stairs and away from his tormentors, who were unfortunately also his roommates.

When he arrived and promptly lay down on his back on his four-poster bed, he heard Luna shut the door behind her and slowly begin to walk towards him.

"Neville, hey Neville, guess what?"

"What do you want Luna?" He hadn't meant to be rude, but he knew all too well that Luna wouldn't remember any part of this conversation tomorrow.

"Neville, I lied to you. I need to tell you the truth."

"Luna, you're drunk. You have no idea what you're saying right now," he said with a lot of certainty, remembering the state of her speech a few minutes ago.

"I'm not drunk; don't you know me at all Neville? I was faking it; honestly, all I had to drink all night was pumpkin juice." Suddenly it occurred to him that Luna had not slurred or repeated herself at all since she had come upstairs with him.

"You deserve to know, and you deserved to know right away. I lied to you, and I never should have kissed you, I should have never let you believe that I wanted to be more than friends."

Now it was Neville's turn to stutter. "W-w-what?"