Yup. I'm actually updating this.

Ever since the case where Cho Chang was nearly sacrificed to a vat of non-acetone watermelon-scented nail-polish remover, the cat fighting war for Neville took on a new level of viciousness. No more did girls battle loudly in the halls, screaming their love for the Longbottom boy. No more were blatant attacks performed at one another.

There were several reasons for this. For one thing, after Draco had revealed his plan to turn all the hot girls in the school to him, his already-low popularity with the opposite sex plunged violently. If such obvious attempts at Neville attracted scum like him, well, it just wasn't worth it.

As for the second reason... blatant war just didn't seem to be working. And the Hogwarts girls such as Cho and Ginny and the Patil twins, as well as the French heart-breaker Fleur, were smart, intelligent girls. If they weren't brainy, they at least were gifted with a pinch of street smart logic. So, after a surprising night of female bonding with popcorn and a cheap theatre viewing of Mean Girls, they all knew what had to be done.

Well, it wasn't quite a Lindsay Lohan disaster, but things were pretty nasty. And being all witches, random cruel pranks could be performed in much more exciting ways that would make SNL cry. For example, Hermione (who was actually napping during the third installment and not really dead) put a Fungus Fun charm on Fleur's Crest White Strips. And Parvati Patil tried to trick Ginny into eating fattening vegetables. Unfortunately, Parvati had gotten that idea from her conniving twin Padma, who actually knew a little about low-carb dieting. So that idea didn't work.

And yet, for a time, nothing seemed to work. Neville went on reasonably happy with his life and not one of them was yet able to score a date with him. Draco, of course, was available, and after a particularly bad crying episode Cho actually had the nerve to get a hamburger at him. But in the territory where Neville was concerned, there was nothing. He simply showed no interest in none of them.

Until she hit the scene.

She had been attending the school with the rest of them, had entered the sorting ceremony right along with Ginny Weasley. She had done her thing, had gone through school with more or less notice than anyone else. She had never been much of a threat. At least, they hadn't seen her that way. But with her long blond hair, brilliant eyes, and psychotic earrings, Luna Lovegood was nothing less than a threat.

Cho and Fleur watched her in the bathroom-their bathroom, their personal battlefield against one another- as she hummed to herself and made notes on how the bathroom mirror was actually a portal to another dimension.

"You know, "Luna said innocently to the girls. "That Hermione Granger? I don't think she was napping, like she said. I think she was really dead."

Cho and Fleur exchanged looks. How was that for crazy? Everyone knew that it was perfectly logical to take naps behind bags of dragon manuere in the greenhouse. So what if they thought she had been dead?

"It was diagnosed as lipstick poisoning," Luna continued, measuring the angle of the mirror to the second stall. "No one survives lipstick poisoning."

Lipstick poisoning. Cho and Fleur both had several tubes with them. Cho had been accused of murdering Hermione.... why couldn't she really murder someone?

Carefully, both girls pulled tubes from their bags (Cherry Pie Muave, Sheer Sheerness, Glistening Gray, and Persian Rose) and moved in on Luna.

"Ah!" she screamed. "There is a conspiracy!" She threw herself at their feet.

"She's giving in," Cho whispered.

"Zat she iz," Fleur replied. "She knows what we want."

"I'll tell you everything I know about the Golden Snidget DNA project!" Luna screamed. "Just don't get lipstick on my new shirt! It attracts zombies like Hermione Granger!"

The girls stared.

It was all the time Luna needed. She leaped to her feet and dashed from the bathroom, notes on the mirror portal clenched in her fist.

"She iz ezcap'ing!" Fleur shouted. "After 'er!"

And so Cho and Fleur dashed after Luna, lipstick clenched in their fists.

But Ginny and Pansy Parkinson were waiting. As it turns out, Pansy could hold her own in the bat-bogie hex department as well. Especially when it came to fighting for Neville.

Cho and Fleur screamed and shielded their faces as the hex came into place.

Luna skidded to a stop and turned to watch all the action. How rude! Even if Fleur and Cho were conspiring against her and the Golden Snidgets.... With a flick of her wand, Luna changed the humidity around Ginny and Pansy.

The girls shrieked as their hair burst into unruly curls.

Luna laughed and turned back around. And almost shrieked herself.

There he was. Neville Longbottom. Luna had never thought much about him, but at that moment something happened. Perhaps it was the way a few renegade bats tumbled in the air above his head, or perhaps how someone just happened to be playing Italian opera somewhere nearby, but her heart fluttered. Neville. Suddenly his name was so tempting to say. So she said it aloud. "Neville."

"Huh?" He stopped his crusade down the hall and looked at her. And she looked back at him, and the music became louder and-

Hermione the Zombie appeared! She was actually looking pretty nice-for a zombie.

Luna sighed and shook her head. Even if she was a pretty zombie, the Granger girl still had the look of crawling from the grave. How could no one else notice? And how dare the zombie intrude on such a moment!

"Grr!" growled Hermione the Zombie. "So the Lovegood girl has entered the war? And Neville, letting her do so. After all that happened in that empty classroom between us!"

Neville stared at her. "Huh? But all that happened there was CPR practice! And it wasn't even with each other! We were using the Resusca-Annies!"

Hermione the Zombie growled again and leaped at Neville.

"Neville!" cried Luna, Ginny, Pansy, Cho, and Fleur. And the latter four also leapt Neville.

Poor Neville screamed.

Luna only shook her head and pulled something from her robe. An amulet against zombies. It was actually a box of chocolate Smarties left over from trick-or-treating eight years ago, but oh well. She hadn't been attacked by zombies that night. She tossed the box.

The box hit Cho instead of the zombie, so she burst into flames. Screaming, she raced down the hall and into a wall, where she at least got to be rendered unconscious as she burned to death. The others girls also screamed and ran off into various walls, but at least they didn't burn.

Luna watched in mild interest. Cho was gone.

But would she come back as a zombie as well?

But that didn't matter. Luna turned to look for Neville. But he had (smartly) fled.

Thanks to everyone who's read so far!

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