Disclaimer: Harry Potter is from the creative genius that is J.K. Rowling. We are not her. This is merely a fan fiction to tide us over until Book 6.
Ron, Seamus, and Dean had just breathed a sigh of relief when a loud ruckus came from the doorway. Jack Sloper came pounding up the stairs with several of the sixth and fifth year boys behind him. Jack's face was red in anger as he burst into the room.
"All right! What in the bloody hell did you buggers do now?" he bellowed.
"What are you yapping about?" Ron sighed, holding his head in his hands as he felt a migraine settling in.
Sloper sneered at the seventh-year. "Well, I doubt it was you and yours. All of Hogwarts would have heard it."
"What are you blabbing on about, Jack?" Seamus asked. "The movie's about to begin and I have a nice 'present' coming from Lavender afterward."
"There won't be any 'presents' for anyone, Finnegan," snapped Dennis Creevey, who stepped out from behind Sloper. "The girls won't come down for the movie. It's the last frigging Friday movie night before the hols, and the girls won't come downstairs!"
"What?" yelped Dean. "But we even picked out a girly snogging movie!"
There was a general uproar from the boys, with a smattering of the words 'conspiracy','women', and other words that gentlemen generally do not use.
"That maybe tough for you BOYS," smirked Seamus. "I've still got a date with Lavender."
"Don't count on it," Sloper said throwing what appeared to be one of Seamus' old school ties at him. Seamus caught it and stared disbelieving at it.
"Bloody hell," he muttered before collapsing into a chair.
"What makes you all so sure one of us did something to piss off the birds?" Ron asked.
"When they snubbed us and we asked what was wrong, they told us to 'ask the wankers up in seventh-year' so it must be one of you lot," said Colin Creevey.
"It was YOU TWO!" yelled Seamus as he crossed the room and pointed at both Neville and Harry. "You just had to pick tonight of all nights to piss her off, didn't you? I don't care if the two of you have to bloody kiss and make up in the middle of the Great Hall, you will fix this tonight!"
Harry and Neville stared at him incredulously as the lower years looked at them quizzically.
"She just bloody told us she'd castrate us and you want us to go and find her?!" snapped Harry.
"She's not coming down?" Neville asked in a sad voice as he collapsed on the trunk at the end of his bed. "We were going to sit together tonight," he said to himself in a quiet voice. "I thought it would be nice, just the two of us before her parents came. Not that I blame HER."
He glanced at Harry who glared back. The room got quiet.
"All right, would someone just tell us what happened?" demanded Sloper.
Dean cleared his throat. "There was just a little misunderstanding between, um, Neville and Harry."
"What could Neville and Harry argue about that's so important that the girls are all upstairs comforting Alaire? It's not like she's in love with either of them," Jack blurted out.
"Excuse me?" Neville stood up suddenly and walked over to Sloper who for the first time in his life noticed that not only was Neville taller than he was, he also had muscular arms that could give him a good beating.
"I mean, um," Jack retreated.
"Don't talk about something, you know nothing about it," Neville told him.
"You mean that you and Alaire are going out?" Colin Creevey asked incredulously. For a moment, Harry felt a pang of righteousness as he watched the scene. He wasn't the only one who couldn't believe that Alaire would pick Neville over him.
"Yes! We are! And tonight was going to be a great date until someone opened his mouth –"
"Hold it!!!" Dean shouted. "We are not going back there!" He placed a warning hand on Neville's arm who nodded and sat back down on his bed.
"Its just that Alaire's parents are coming up for the hols and I thought –"
A whistle erupted as the boys all turned to look at him.
"You're meeting her parents?" someone asked.
"Yes, but I don't see what the big deal is really."
"He doesn't see what the big deal is!" said Seamus. "Somebody get Longbottom a blindfold before his execution."
Harry looked oddly at Neville, before getting up and patting him on the shoulder. "On second thought, I think Alaire and you make a lovely couple. I'm sure you'll get along great with her father."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"LOOK, LOOK, LOOK, before we further discuss Longbottom's probable untimely demise, we have to do something about the girls," said Dennis Creevey. "There's just this Friday, next is a Hogsmeade weekend and then the holidays. We have a very limited amount of time before we're away for a bit."
"That's right," said Sloper. "And one of you two have got to fix this."
"How?" asked Harry. "We can't get up those bloody stairs."
"Broom's out, too. There's a wicked current right by that window," said Ron.
"How do you know?" Seamus asked with a smirk. Ron turned red as he flopped down on his bed.
"Yeah, if none of the girls will talk to us, how can we fix it?" asked Neville.
"We'll just have to find one to talk to us then," said Ron shooting Harry a look as if to say 'Marauder's Map'.
"Right then, everybody out while we plan," said Harry as he ushered the complaining guys out of the room. Quickly, he threw open the lid to his trunk and dug out the Marauder's Map.
"One of them has to be outside the tower with detention or something," Harry said scanning the parchment. "Or in the kitchen. There's our answer."
Ron and the rest of the seventh-year boys looked at where Harry was pointing at the name Ginny Weasley.
"My sister isn't the answer to anything unless it's the question 'Why are the Weasley men cowering in fear?' " snapped Ron.
"No, it's perfect," said Neville. "Ginny's always been willing to help me. She'll talk to Alaire."
"Yeah, but you've never been on her bloody bad side before," snapped Ron. "And we're not carrying you to the infirmary afterwards."
"I wouldn't ask you to," Neville said before bounding out of the room and taking the stairs two at a time heading off to the kitchens.
"He does realize that in all likelihood he is a dead man, right?" asked Ron.
Ginny Weasley juggled several pieces of food in her hand as she made her way back up to the Gryffindor Tower. Being one of the only ones to know their way to the kitchens was sometimes both a blessing and a curse. If she hadn't left her wand upstairs, this would have been easier, she thought to herself. She was concentrating on balancing a cream pie when she turned a corner and was plowed into by someone. The food went flying into the air and soon she and her attacker looked like a scene from an old slapstick movie.
"Oh, bloody hell!" she snapped as she wiped whipped cream from her face.
"I'm so sorry, Ginny," Neville's voice said as he started to pick up the food and hand it to her. He passed her his wand to do a quick cleaning spell.
"I'm not the one you should be saying that to, Neville," she said harshly as the whipped cream disappeared.
"I know," he said. "But Alaire won't talk to me. I can't even get up the stairs, won't you say something to her and ask her to come down and talk with me?"
"Are you insane?" snapped Ginny. "I'm not about ready to go against womankind, just because you happen to be a nice boy who just royally screwed up."
"If you won't talk to her at least transfigure me into a pig or a donkey or something that she'll recognize. I'll help you carry this food up and then she'll know that I'm sorry by what a thing I've become," he said pleading.
"Neville, I am not going to transfigure you into an ass or a pig," Ginny snapped, grabbing the last piece of food from him. "I only do that to people who truly deserve it like my brothers and Harry."
Neville sat with his back against the wall and sighed deeply. "I wanted so much not to mess this up," he said sadly. "I couldn't even go a day with out screwing up – not one day. Who am I kidding? Alaire deserves better than me."
Ginny huffed and looked down at him. "Neville, you are a very sweet and wonderful man. I will have you know that Alaire is crazy about you. You know who she compared you too after coming upstairs with me and Hermione?"
"A horse's ass?"
"No," said Ginny smiling. "Albert Einstein."
Neville looked up in wonder. "She said the only reason you were a little forgetful is because you have other things – greater things – on your mind. She said Albert Einstein was the same way. Besides, I'm sure that something will plant itself in that brain of yours and you will find your own way to climb up and to talk to her."
Ginny watched as a light bulb seemed to go off in Neville's head. "You're bloody brilliant," Neville said brightly before getting up and taking off in a dead run for his study. He stopped a few feet away and turned back. He took in his arms and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Then he dashed away as fast as he could run.
"Barking mad," Ginny said before sighing and starting once again for Gryffindor Tower.
A half hour later, the fifth through seventh year boys found themselves nearly freezing to death outside the castle by the Gryffindor Tower Girl's Dorm. Many were casting warming spells at the base of the tower as Neville worked to get several small plants together.
"Explain to me what the bloody hell we're doing out here again?" chattered Seamus.
"I'm fixing this," said Neville as he placed three ivy plants beside each other. "All right. On the count of three, I need all the sixth and seventh-years to place engorgement charms on these three plants while the fifth-years continue with the warming charms."
"Neville, are you sure –"
"This will work Ron," Neville said taking a few steps back. "One, two, THREE!"
Several spells went off at once and suddenly the pots burst from their pots. Quickly, Neville grabbed hold of a vine and suddenly found himself shooting up on the air.
"Bloody hell, its ivy," said Dean looking up as Neville and the plant continued to grow. "Kind of reminds me of that muggle tale about a beanstalk."
Neville remembered about a hundred feet up that he was afraid of heights and around 150 feet up, he found out that Ron was right. The wind up here was awful. At 200 feet, the window came into view.
"So then Seamus says 'It's slippery when it's wet,'" said Lavender.
"He did not," giggled Pavarti. "That has got to be one of the worst pickup lines ever."
"The man's dense, but he is direct," Lavender stated as the room bust into laughter.
"What about you, Alaire?" asked Carmen Krumel, a sixth-year. "What line did Neville use?"
"He hasn't really," Alaire said. "He really is a sweet guy, and I'm just going to punish him for a little bit longer before we make up."
"But he has to apologize first! That's the rule. The men must apologize first, especially if they were the nitwits that started the argument," said Hermione.
"Hermione would know," smirked Ginny. "She can write a book about ways to make my brother apologize. The dense git that he is."
"What was the best way Ron apologized?" asked Pavarti slyly.
A blush rose up on Hermione's cheeks, "That's none of your business."
The girls broke into hysterical giggles almost so loud they didn't hear the knocking coming from the window.
"Oh, what's that?" Hermione said looking toward the window.
"Must be an owl," said Carmen. "Let's just send it away. It's probably from one of the boys anyway. Just tell them we're not coming down."
Ginny Weasley looked out the window and smiled. "It's not an owl from the boys, but a boy himself." She opened the window to reveal Neville's pale face.
Alaire ran to the window. "What are you doing?! You're afraid of heights!! Are you insane?"
"Tell her you're sorry, you arse!!" someone shouted from below.
"I-I just wanted to tell you, I'm sorry," Neville said through chattering teeth.
"Of course, you are, you silly boy!" Alaire said with a smile. "But, this is a bit extreme."
"Ask about the girls!!!"
"Would you come downstairs so we could talk?" Neville asked as a stiff breeze almost tore him from the vine.
"Neville!" Alaire grabbed him with a scream. She snatched his hand just as the vine began to give way. She and Ginny quickly pulled him from the window onto the floor with a plop.
"That hurt," Neville muttered as he picked himself off the floor.
"Neville!" Alaire exclaimed coming up to him. "Are you OK?"
"You wouldn't come down, and I wanted to tell you what an ass I was and how sorry I was to upset you and how much I don't deserve someone like you and well, I'm sorry," he said getting up and holding on to Alaire by the shoulders.
The girls in the room looked on in wonder. Alaire's knight in shining armor had just climbed in through the window and was declaring himself right in front of them. A few gave a sigh at the romance of it all while a few wondered why they hadn't noticed the dark-haired boy with the shy grin before.
"And even if you don't think too kindly about me right now, I just wanted to let you know how much I care about you and that I'm really, really sorry that I acted like a complete and total prat. I just wanted everything to be perfect for us and I promise I'll try a lot harder and I –"
"Neville, shut up," Alaire said placing a finger on his lips.
A collective "Ah!" went up from the girls, as Alaire smiled brightly and flung herself into Neville's arms and kissed him as deeply as she could. Now she knew, she had chosen wisely.