Chapter 41: A Kiss for Felix Felicius
Though he had never had a sibling, Neville had sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have one, had his parents not been murdered.
The scene before him now constituted one of those rare moments when he was exceedingly glad never to have had a brother or a sister. Having a row close to going to wands was dangerous in surely every setting, but especially on one of the rotating staircases.
The evening had started out innocently enough. Neville had met Ron late out on the Quidditch pitch following a practice of the Gryffindor team, on which Ron was now Keeper. Climbing to the seventh floor so they wouldn't miss curfew, both boys had walked in on Ginny Weasley wrapped in the arms of Dean Thomas, snogging him heatedly. This, of course, had made Ron irate, and while he had no doubt meant well in his big-brotherly protectiveness, Ginny had not been amused at having her closest brother ruin her make-out session.
"Right…. let's get one thing straight:" Ginny had huffed, her voice laced with a dangerous calm. "It is none of your business who I snog or who I date, Ron…"
"It bloody well so is my business! How else can I make sure your honor is secure?" Neville winced at this, even as Ginny screamed with derisive laughter.
"Honestly, Ron, the only reason you make snogging out to be something dangerous is because you've never done any yourself!"
Ron spluttered with fury, knocked off-balance, flatfooted.
"Don't think I haven't seen you sucking up to Phlegm whenever we're at the Burrow; it's pathetic!"
"Now just a minute….!" Ron wagged a finger, affronted. "This has nothing to do with Bill or Fleur…."
"Well, you're certainly not getting any practice in with her!" Ginny sneered. "Who else would have you and your gross tongue down her throat – Hermione?" Ron's cheeks turned redder than his Quidditch robes at this, though whether from anger or bashfulness, Neville couldn't tell. "Or are you keeping a photo of Great-Aunt Muriel under your pillow?"
"You little -!"
Neville threw himself between the siblings with his arms outstretched; yet Ron's curse flew under his elbow anyway, barely missing Ginny by inches. Using perhaps more force than was strictly necessary, Neville wrested the wand from his best mate's grip and pushed Ron up against the wall.
"Don't be bloody stupid…!"
"Neville's snogged Hermione! And me!" Ginny cried, sounding close to tears now. "And Luna snogged Viktor Krum – it's only you who makes it out as something disgusting, Ron, and that's because you have about as much experience as a twelve-year-old!" And with that, she flew up the changing staircase, sobbing.
Ron twisted sharply out of Neville's grip, fuming. There was a stony tension to his shoulders and back as he ascended the stair, leaving Neville to wonder if it was something he did. They were nearly at the portrait hole when Ron suddenly rounded on him so abruptly, Neville nearly bashed his nose into his.
"When the bloody devil did you snog Hermione?" he demanded, hotly.
"I…. I…." Neville spluttered for a moment as his brain processed the question. He was honestly having his insides turn themselves out more over the knowledge that Luna had apparently snogged Viktor Krum at one point. "I don't…. After the Yule Ball? We did go together!"
"And you kissed her?!" Ron took an almost intimidating step in.
"Yeah, I did, but it was a chaste, innocent little peck! Nothing more!" That last bit was sort of a lie, but Neville told it out of a sense of wanting to spare Ron's feelings. "Look, in any event, it meant nothing! And if anything, it told Hermione and me that we're better as friends. That's it!"
Ron leaned back, his expression scrutinizing, skeptical. At last, he heaved out a sigh. "Oh, all right. If you say so. I just wish I would have heard it from either of your mouths and not Ginny's…"
"We didn't know how to tell you. Hermione and I don't really speak of it, anyway. If we did, we'd probably laugh more than talk."
Ron grunted, both boys climbing the last steps to the portrait hole in silence.
"Do you think Luna Lovegood really did snog Krum?" Ron asked mildly, though there might have been a deeper question in his eyes as he studied Neville.
"I don't bloody know!" Neville huffed out gruffly, not wanting to talk about it.
Neville closely observed the countenance of his best mate from across the Gryffindor Table with growing concern. Ron's pallor appeared the same color as infected stool – a ghastly mix of pale white and sickly green. Seated right at his side, Hermione was practically hovering, her smile strained with concern.
Neville nudged at Ron's plate. "You need to eat," he prompted.
"Neville's right, Ron: you have to build up your strength," Hermione urged, a strange breathlessness to her voice.
"I'm not hungry," Ron mumbled, sounding somewhere outside of himself.
Hermione sent Neville a helpless look, but he could only shrug. It wasn't as though either one of them held a greater power to talk some sense into Ron than the other. When their best mate had first expressed his desire to achieve a lifelong dream – go out for the House Quidditch team – Neville and Hermione had been nothing but supportive. Despite her ready profession that she was an ambivalent, fair-weather fan at best and how she would never mount a broom in her life under any circumstances, Neville knew Hermione would be there for every match, just as he would.
But first, they had to get Ron to keep down food so he could even mount his broom at all. Hermione was hovering so close now, lightly touching Ron's arm, it seemed almost…. strangely intimate.
"I'll be right there watching you. If you feel dizzy, or unsteady on your broom, look for me. Neville and I will be sitting next to Luna, so if you find her silly hat, you'll find us…!"
As if on cue, Luna came practically skipping up to the Trio, the brash lion's head she wore in support of Gryffindor perched proudly over her ears.
"Hello, everybody!" she reserved a particularly bright smile for Neville, who grinned warmly back. She was so lovely, especially to come and support a classmate and player not wearing the robes for her own House team. Glancing at Ron, her silver eyes expanded with genuine concern. "You look dreadful, Ron – is it a tonic?"
Ron harrumphed out something unintelligible in reply.
"No, but he has to drink something in order to stay hydrated!" Neville segued, scooting the goblet of pumpkin pasty closer to Ron's hand, which was now shaking. "Drink up, man!"
Turning him to face her, Hermione actually cupped Ron's cheeks in her hands. "Listen to me: you are Ron Weasley, the guy who eats, sleeps and breathes Quidditch more than anyone I know! This is your dream, and it's waiting right out there for you on that pitch! All you have to do is buck up and seize it! Block all those Bludgers!"
"Quaffles," Ron corrected her weakly.
"Whatever."
But Ron still looked like was about to perform a perp walk to his own execution. "I can't do this…" He started to get up, and managed to squirt off the bench before Hermione lunged and grabbed for him.
"Ron, you can!"
"I'm gonna lose the match – bloody hell, the season! – for Gryffindor. I can't do this!"
"Yes, you can!" Hermione was practically wrestling with the man now. Watching the display, Neville's fingers itched towards the vial in his robes the way a gunslinger hovers over his firearm. If Ron didn't snap out of it in the next five seconds, he might have to do something drastic. His best mate had worked so hard to just even make the team; Neville wasn't about to let him fail.
"LOOK AT ME! – Look at me!" Hermione suddenly cradled Ron's face in her hands, nearly nose to nose with him. After a brief, frozen tableau, she suddenly closed the last little distance, desperately shoved her lips onto Ron's, and kissed him.
Ron's blue eyes popped and he stiffened in his best friend's hasty embrace, but then a moment later, he gave in completely and, pulling Hermione close, began snogging her back. Neville thought he heard Hermione let out a pretty little gasp at having her kiss returned so ardently.
Even with his mouth dropped open in astonishment, Neville seized his chance. While it looked like Hermione was leaning into the kiss, deepening it, her eyes fluttering shut, he stretched across the table, uncorked the bottle of Felix Felicius, and tipped….
"Ron, wait! Don't drink that!"
Neville snapped his head up, caught, both Ron and Hermione having broken apart sooner than he expected, though their arms were still around each other. If she had been shocked by her own actions and how eagerly Ron had responded to them, Hermione now appeared downright appalled by Neville's actions, her big, brown eyes huge, and not just because she and her one best mate had just snogged the living daylights out of each other.
"You just put something in that drink."
"Excuse me?" Neville put on a picture of innocence and nonchalantly sat back, pocketing the vial of Felix Felicius.
"I saw you!" Hermione accused. She turned back to Ron, hands on his chest. "Ron, love, don't drink that…."
But even though he looked as though he had been hit in the back of the head with a Bludger, Ron deliberately lifted the pumpkin juice to his swollen, very-kissed lips and took a sip.
Neville wasn't sure which it was – the drink or Hermione's wild kiss – but Ron's expression lifted regardless.
"Come on, Neville – I've got a game to win!" And he marched off, both his friends staring after him, Hermione looking stunned, while Neville was more… hopeful.
The Gryffindor Common Room was a wild celebration of victory after the match, and only one name was on everybody's lips.
"WEASLEY! WEASLEY! WEASLEY!" Ron was held up above the rest of the crowd like a kind of conquering hero, having blocked enough goal attempts to hold Slytherin down to their worst point total in Quidditch going back years.
From off to the side, Neville and Hermione watched Ron get his moment in the limelight that he'd always wanted. The beautiful, bushy-haired girl couldn't help the small smile that graced her lips, though it masked her hissed words of venom:
"I'd feel happier for him if I didn't know that you cheated!"
"Hark, who's talking? Confunded anyone lately?" Neville retorted. Reminded of how she had, in fact, messed with Ron's biggest competitor for the Keeper slot at try-outs, Hermione faltered.
"That was different!" she spluttered. "I was trying to help him!"
"So was I," Neville replied. "Or…. did I?" And he presented to Hermione the full-to-the-brim vial of Felix Felicius, the cork still topped. She blinked dumbly.
"You…. you didn't put it in," she breathed. "Ron only thought you did…"
Neville smirked. "And to make him believe it, I had to make you believe it too, didn't I? Then again…. I have a feeling you made him believe just fine on your own. Placebo effects are the damndest thing, aren't they?"
Hermione quirked her lips dryly, her cheeks turning rosy pink. "So is snogging."
The shouts and cheers swelled louder, causing Neville and Hermione to turn back to the ruckus just in time to see Ron stagger from his sea of admirers, blue eyes scanning frantically. Spying Hermione, he suddenly seized her by the hand and pulled her into the crowd's midst. Taking her by the waist, he pulled her close so that she nearly crashed into his chest, bracing against it as her big brown eyes blinked up at him in confusion. Next moment, prim and proper Hermione Granger gasped as Ron's mouth slammed down onto hers in a fiery, passionate kiss.
A beat…. and then the beautiful, bookish Gryffindor melted, looping her arms languidly about Ron's neck and kissing him back in triumph. Her brown eyes fluttered, drooped shut and she let out a plaintive moan.
"Mmmmhmmmmm….."
The entire Gryffindor Common Room erupted into gasps, and then wild cheers as the two friends-turned-to-lovers embraced and dreamily kissed, then descended into a full-on snog.
Neville watched them kiss, and how Hermione's knees grew weak enough that she swooned, nearly collapsed, in Ron's embrace. He had been wondering if his best mates would act on their clear feelings for each other, though the wild kiss from this morning had still shocked him, and yet…. he felt happy for them.
Turning his face away to let Ron and Hermione have their private moment, something crumpled carelessly in an armchair caught his eye and he went to pick it up: it was Luna's infernal lion's head hat. Some Gryffindor must have let her in past the Fat Lady portrait. But where was the hat's owner? Had she left it? Had Luna already gone?
Neville scanned through the sea of heads, but he couldn't find those light blond curls. His eyes locked onto the portrait hole just in time to see a mane of bushy-brown hair duck through it, another figure leading her by the hand. Smiling softly, and despite knowing he would be better to let it be, Neville followed.
He found Ron and Hermione in the darkened corner of one corridor, kissing languorously, and lazily. Hermione's eyelids were drooped completely, and her head twisted a little as her lips met Ron's in an easy give-and-take, until she teasingly ducked her face so that Ron's mouth had to chase hers.
"Ron…" she breathed, sighed. "We… don't you think we should – Mmmmm…" His lips captured hers again, and she sank into it, before her more practical side remembered herself. "Take this slow?"
"I'd say we've been stalling for quite long enough, don't you, love?" Ron murmured huskily, kissing her again and she allowed it, purring happily. Neville watched as Ron's large and calloused hands came to rest on Hermione's smart little bum, feeling her up. The moment that Hermione gallingly hitched her leg up, in response to Ron gripping the underside of her thigh, Neville staggered a step back. He really shouldn't be intruding on such an intensely intimate moment; they really deserved to be alone, to snog and talk in private.
Too late. Eyelashes fluttering prettily, Hermione's eyes opened and caught sight of Neville. She broke the kiss with Ron, looking adorably scandalized. "Oh! Neville…." Her breasts were heaving under her blouse like bellows; she was breathless and flushed. "We… Ronald and I were just…"
Neville smiled. "Never mind me!" he teased.
"Fine. We won't," Ron sniffed, trying to act putout at being interrupted in kissing his girl. Pulling Hermione closer by her hips, he was about to swoop in and kiss her again when she pressed a gentle hand into his chest.
"Ron…. love…" And a giddy smile crossed Hermione's face as she said this, savoring the word. "Would you excuse Neville and me for a moment?"
Ron glanced between his best friend and… and his girlfriend before nodding. He set Hermione down gentlemanly, pecked her chastely on the lips once, and rounded the corner.
Seeing her turn to him, Neville smiled genuinely at Hermione. "I'm happy for you," he murmured. "Truly."
She beamed, blushing. "Thanks. I'll be sure to return the favor if you ever work up the nerve to snog Luna Lovegood's little mouth off."
Neville started in utter surprise at this, his gawping at her now all too telling. Hermione merely grinned softly and shook her head.
"I know. I've seen the way you look at her…. you're my best friend."
Neville felt his insides roiling now, and his cheeks were flushing red.
"Just promise me you won't wait too long, the way Ron and I did? The danger's growing worse every day," Hermione crooned.
Meeting his best mate's all-too-knowing gaze, Neville gulped and nodded.