A/N: Thanks for clicking me! This is a N/L one-shot, with implied H/G and R/Hr. Nothing belongs to me, and I hope you like it. I would type a little smiley here but the ff.net document uploader will sadly just turn it into a J. But imagine it's there all the same!
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Nobody Special:
Neville Longbottom knew that he was nobody special.
He was just the plump boy with the round face and butterfingers who happened to be in the same year and house as Harry Potter.
Neville was quite used to being a nobody, thank you very much. Sometimes it didn't even bother him that he was always the odd one out. Harry and Ron were best friends, and so were Dean and Seamus. He was just Neville, good for a laugh but not to seriously have as a friend.
It wasn't as if he expected to have much luck with girls.
In his entire four year crush on Hermione Granger, Neville was quite proud to say that he had never, not once, deluded himself into thinking that she would feel anything back towards him. After all, she was Hermione Granger! She was pretty in an unknowing way, impossibly clever, kind, and at the time Neville had thought that she was quite perfect.
It had taken him weeks to screw up the courage to ask her to the Yule Ball in his fourth year. When he had done it, he knew that she had already fallen in love with Ron Weasley. Because Neville was a nobody, he had a gift for seeing what other people missed; like the way Hermione's eyes were sometimes quite affectionate as she bickered with Ron, and sometimes they flashed with anger that the person she loved could be so stupid. Neville also knew that Ron liked Hermione back, which was something he didn't think even Ron had realised yet.
Idiot.
If Hermione had loved him, he would have been falling over himself to ask her to the Ball.
But he asked her anyway, because he didn't want to go with anyone else. And because he felt sorry for her after he saw Ron drooling over Fleur Delacour. But mainly because he really wanted to go with her, to spend a night with her, being her friend before Ron woke up and realised what a prat he was being.
Neville didn't blame her for preferring to go with a famous Quidditch player, not at all. Especially as she had seemed quite apologetic about it, and hadn't laughed in his face as he had dreaded beforehand. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would.
So Neville asked Ginny Weasley, who was pretty and funny and nice to talk to. He didn't like her, not in that way, but she was one of the few people who didn't seem to see him as Neville Longbottom – nobody special, but just as Neville Longbottom. They went to the Ball together and she didn't even seem to mind when he trod on her feet because he was rubbish at dancing and had two left feet. They chatted a bit and Neville was surprised at how much of a good time he was having.
To be honest, he had been a bit surprised when Michael Corner had come over to chat to Ginny, and even more surprised when Ginny had started to show interest back. But then he had looked at Harry mooning over Cho and understood. So, because he wanted her to be happy despite the fact that he thought she looked beautiful in the dress robes she was wearing, he told Michael that he and Ginny were just friends and that Michael should ask her to dance.
Yes, Neville was used to not having much luck with girls.
Although he did allow himself a bit of smugness when Ron finally started showing interest in Hermione; he, Neville had noticed how special she was straight off in the first year when she had helped him find Trevor. He didn't like her anymore, but enjoyed for once feeling that he had realised something before everyone else. He had also realised about Ginny before Harry did, but that was another story.
Neville never expected Luna Lovegood to like him back. He didn't want to like her, not really, because she was called "Loony" by practically everyone, because she was too pretty for him, and because she would never be interested in a nobody.
But he did like her.
He liked her because she didn't seem to care what other people thought and judged for herself. He liked her because she seemed to like spending as much time with him as she did with Harry or Ron. He liked her because she had blonde hair that was somewhere between curly and straight and could never be restrained. He liked her because he always seemed to have an ink splodge on her nose after Potions class, when they passed in the corridor. He liked her because she had never thought Harry was a liar or a fake. He liked her because she was interested in things that other people weren't and because she always listened to you, no matter how stupid you thought you were being. He liked her because her eyes sparkled when she told him about the next article due in the "Quibbler". He liked her because she was very brave and stood up for her friends. He liked her because she would always wave at him when she saw him, and crinkle her nose up in greeting.
He liked her because she was Luna. And that was that.
She had been the first person he had actually told about his parents, not like Harry and everyone else who had found out by accident. She had written him a letter in summer after his fifth year about how she had gone to visit her mother's grave and almost as if his hand had a mind of its own, Neville had found himself writing about what had happened to his parents. She hadn't been too sympathetic or awkward, but just replied in a way that showed she understood, but didn't think he was silly or that it was funny.
After that, Neville's owl had been very busy flying backwards and forwards to Luna's house. He had come to look forward to her letters eagerly, because she always signed them "Love Luna" and because sometimes they would be crumpled where she had lost them under the mountain of stuff on her desk and had to use a spell to recover them. Sometimes she sent him things too, like a copy of the "Quibbler" with a particular article ringed or an object that was supposed to give you happiness. It was enough that she wanted him to be happy.
In school for his sixth year, they spent a lot of time together, just walking around the grounds and talking. Once, he had gone into the Great Hall for breakfast and saw that she was sitting on her own at the Ravenclaw table because the people there seemed to be ignoring her. Surprising even himself, Neville had walked straight over, sat next to her and helped himself to some toast. The smile she gave him had made it worth it.
But he never let himself think that she liked him back, because it would hurt too much if he was wrong. He didn't even let himself think that when she offered to come and visit his parents with him, or when she wrote him little notes to remind him of things that he never meant to forget and signed them "Love Luna" like she always did.
For her birthday, Neville had worried for ages about what to buy her. In the end, he had adopted her a unicorn from one of the magical conservation areas because Luna had been telling him about how unicorns had the power to speak human language, they just chose not to in human presence. He wanted to give her the chance to prove herself right. He could only afford to adopt it for a year, and it was a bit of a silly idea, but he hoped it would be good enough.
He had given her the present when they were alone because he had worried other people would laugh at him. When she opened it, her eyes had sort of lit up, she beamed at him and to his great surprise kissed him squarely on the lips.
It took him another three weeks to get the courage to ask her to be his girlfriend, and part of that only came from the fact that he wanted to kiss her again very much. She didn't seem to mind that she stuttered, had replied "of course" as if it was a silly question and had kissed him back when he kissed her. He liked the way her hand seemed to fit in his as they had walked back to the castle afterwards.
Neville Longbottom knew that he was nobody special, thank you very much. But Luna made him feel special, and that was one of the reasons why he loved her so much.
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