Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations pulled from some blonde's arse

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

NEVILLE DEXTEROUS

chapter three

(head) boy issues

Hermione had been a nightmare as a prefect. As Head Girl she was almost a tyrant. She spent the first few nights charging around the room shouting at anyone who was not studying. She confiscated several chess sets (including poor Ron's, who was reduced to tears by the whole affair), hundreds of gobstones and countless Exploding Snap cards before a rather clever fourth year pointed out that she was wasting time trying to get them to studying when she could be studying herself.

For her NEWTs she seemed to be studying every subject possible. She was studying Divination by reading the text book so she didn't have to go to classes, and several people swore that on Thursday she had been pleading with Dumbledore to allow her to sit her Muggle A level exams.

The Head Boy was Justin Finch-Fletchley, if only because the Hogwarts board had wanted the most stuck-up wanker imaginable for the Head Boy. Harry had produced a series of badges that all read "The REAL Head Boy," but they were continually being confiscated by McGonagall whenever she caught him trying to take House Points from various students.

"Ten points from Hufflepuff!" Harry shouted. "For being late to class."

"Mr Potter, please sit down," Cedric said calmly. "And I'm not in Hufflepuff any more, so you can't take points off of me."

Cedric had a rather interesting choice of decor for his Defence Against the Dark Arts room. The windows had all been boarded up and covered in a black material. Everything else in the room was black, it was fairly sparsely decorated, bats hung from the ceiling, and behind his desk rested a large, black coffin.

"Right, students," Cedric said, taking a seat on the edge of his desk. "I will be teaching you Defence Against the Dark Arts for the rest of this year. In this very room you will learn about creatures far more terrifying than you can possibly imagine."

"What about Lord Voldemort?" Harry asked. Almost everyone in the class gasped. Neville rolled his eyes. He'd spent the whole summer with Harry, and was used to him suddenly standing up and shouting something about Voldemort.

Cedric winced.

"Okay, maybe you can think of some things more terrifying," Cedric admitted. "But I still expect many of you to piss your pants at some of the creatures you'll see here."

"Will we be studying vampires?" Ron asked, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Vampires?" Cedric hissed, suddenly going rigid. "I'm not a vampire. No sir. Not little Cedric Diggory. I definitely have not joined the ranks of the army of the night. Nope. Not me."

Neville glanced around the class, and felt rather let down by the fact that most of the class looked totally convinced Cedric was telling the truth.

The lesson turned out to be about werewolves. Hermione answered every single question, including the question Cedric called upon Lavender to answer. After that Lavender stopped bothering to put up her hand.

"I don't trust him," Harry said to Ron as they left. "I'm sure he's a Death Eater!"

Cedric had obviously heard that. He looked rather amused by the statement as well.

Neville pondered several of his classmates while he ate his lunch. There was Lavender Brown, who this year seemed totally uninterested in throwing herself at him in the way she had last term. Right now she was eating what appeared to be raw bacon. He wondered if it was some new diet she was on. It was doing wonders for her figure. She seemed to have gained a fair bit of muscle over the summer.

Then there was Hermione, who looked suspiciously like she was flirting with Professor Snape. He was having none of it, of course. That girl had issues.

Harry was busy telling the second years all about how he had stormed the Malfoy Manor single-handed and killed Lucius Malfoy. They all looked up at him in awe. He looked fairly pleased with himself. He was another one with problems to sort out.

Ron had problems as well. Right now he was alternating between staring at a plate of chicken wings and a plate of Shepherd's Pie. Neville was reminded of the story of the donkey with two bales of perfect hay that starved to death trying to decide which one to eat first.

Draco Malfoy appeared to be plotting something with the Slytherins. Neville wondered if perhaps it was a bit short-sighted of the Sorting Hat to arrange it so that every evil wizard had lunch at the same table.

And finally there was Ginny Weasley, who was sitting beside him and had been staring for the last ten minutes. She probably deserved some recognition for managing to not blink the entire time.

"Hello, Ginny, what do you want? Apart from the obvious answer of to have my children."

Ginny flushed and turned to look at her plate, before muttering a few things. Neville was about to get up and leave when she finally worked up the courage to speak.

"How are you, Neville?" she squeaked. Neville gave her a smile.

"I'm very well. How was your day?"

Her eyes widened.

"No one's ever asked me that," Ginny said. Neville was sure that someone must have asked her how her day had gone at some point in her life. What she meant was that Harry had never asked her that before. Harry seemed totally oblivious to Ginny most of the time, not that that seemed to discourage her in any way.

Neville was well aware that even talking to her might start giving her the wrong ideas. But he had grown so used to having Lavender throwing herself at him that he probably wouldn't mind if Ginny started doing it too. She was a lovely girl, after all. And she wasn't too bad on the eyes. Oh, she was nowhere near as outrageously hot as Lavender, and she certainly didn't have the cleavage of Hermione or the freakishly nice legs of Millicent Bulstrode (God had given the poor girl a hideous face, but her legs... oh, they were incredible).

Maybe there was something about her. Her freckles were kind of cute, once you got over how they covered pretty much every inch of visible skin. Her hair was always well looked after, and she had a nice flowery scent about her. Yes, one could do a lot worse than Ginny Weasley.

Neville Longbottom could probably do better though.

A lot better.

It was then that Neville noticed that, while he had been having all these thoughts, Ginny had been jabbering away about every little inconsequential detail about her whole life. Neville tried desperately to focus in and listen, but by that stage she was staring at him expectantly. Oh no, she wanted him to say something!

Quick, take a shot in the dark.

"Life's not fair?" he suggested. To him it sounded poor, but Ginny heard what she wanted to hear and threw her arms around him to pull him into a hug.

"Oh, Neville, no one understands me like you do!"

Neville calmly patted her on the back, wondering what on earth he had gotten himself in for.