Disclaimer: I am neither J.K. Rowling nor any of the corporations to which she has licensed her creation.
"This week we studied Von Schoenebeck's Second Law of Transfiguration, which is...?"
"Euhrr...transfiguring matter doesn't destroy it or create more?"
"Close! The book says 'Matter is neither created nor destroyed as a result of transfiguration, merely rearranged.' I want you to write that down for me...thirty times."
"Yes Ma'am!"
Luna playfully flogged Neville's hand with her quill. He jumped and laughed at the feather's tickle, then grasped Luna's hand and pressed it to his lips.
Professor McGonagall had refused to make an exception and admit Neville to her NEWT-level Transfiguration class. But even if it was too late for him to get a NEWT in the subject, Neville wanted to master at least its basic skills and theories. Therefore, he had sought peer tutoring in the subject.
Luna in turn was glad to have a friend with whom to go over the fifth-year curriculum to reinforce what she was learning, and who could tell her what the Transfiguration and other OWLs would be like. Especially one who seemed so accepting of her penchant for radish earrings and chattering about extraordinary creatures that didn't seem to appear anywhere outside of her father's magazine, The Quibbler.
Dumbledore's Army had not met since the confrontation the previous June in the Department of Mysteries with a clutch of Death Eaters -- Harry's free time this year seemed to be spent in top-secret meetings with headmaster Dumbledore, and at any rate there was no longer a need to hold such meetings and develop skills in secret. Therefore, Neville and Luna were able to spend an hour or two, one or two afternoons a week, in one of the greenhouses, following the fifth-year students' progress through Intermediate Transfiguration, as they were doing one sunny day in January.
Neville jumped as if he had suddenly remembered that he had left a candle burning, dropped the hand he was clasping (Luna had made no attempt to withdraw it), and stared at the table in front of him, his lips moving silently, as he attempted to compose what he wanted to say next. "About the Slug Club Christmas party -- you went with Harry, just as a friend, didn't you?" he said anxiously.
"Oh yes, it was just as friends, and he disappeared almost as soon as we got there, and I had a nice long chat with Trelawney about divination from owl droppings. And there was a vampire as guest of honor after all, but it wasn't Scrimgeour --"
Neville reached across the table and covered Luna's hand with his own. "Then would it be all right if I tried this?" He leaned across the greenhouse potting table to kiss Luna on the mouth. After an internal count of ten (during which his heart and stomach jolted about more frantically than his toad Trevor trying to escape a train wreck) he pulled his face back from Luna's, avidly scanning her lips, her eyes, her eyebrows, trying to assess her reaction to his action. Hadn't she leaned in to receive Neville's kiss?
Luna smiled delightly. Unfortunately, Neville's brief access of Gryffindor courage failed him, and he modestly sat back on his side of the table, fixing his eyes on the sheaf of parchment through which he was rummaging. His cheeks flamed so red an observer would have thought that Luna had just slapped him for impertinence.
Instead Luna reached out her quill again, running it along Neville's flaming face. "The Hickson-Brachs reaction. It's a good sign, it means you'll have better than average resistance to the Heliopaths. Daddy hasn't heard yet what's become of Fudge's army of Heliopaths since Fudge was thrown out of office, but --" Neville leaned across the table again and silenced Luna with another kiss.
Neville's insides churned a little less this time, and he held the kiss for an internal count of twenty-five, before pulling his face back. He opened his mouth, then closed it before saying anything, then opened it again. "So. We were talking about the Second Law of Transfiguration?" he asked, with an air of retreating to safer grounds.
Luna's large, silvery gray eyes blinked with what might have been disappointment, or surprise at Neville's abrupt return to the original topic, or in response to the rosy Scottish sunset beginning outside the greenhouse. "Yes. Now, what are its practical implications?"
"Okay, I remember this one from class!" Neville exclaimed. "Its practical implication is that you can transfigure a small object into a large and different one or vice versa. However, such greatly transfigured objects are not very stable." He tilted his head back to stare at the greenhouse's roof, visibly chasing to the front of his mind what he knew about the topic. "This is important if you're going to actually use the transfigured object. Especially for some purpose that the original object isn't suited for. So for the best results -- as least far as circumstances permit -- you should choose an original object that is as similar as possible to the object into which you want to transfigure it." Neville seemed much less anxious as he babbled what he remembered of McGonagall's lecture.
"For my practical exam, Professor Marchbanks -- she's a very good friend of my Gran, I'll try to introduce you to her before she tests you. Well, she asked me in reference to the Second Law what I would do if I fell into a 10-foot deep pit that had been camouflaged by branches. I said I'd transfigure the branches into a ladder and use that to climb out. But I only got an Acceptable."
He looked at Luna, drawing himself taller physically and composing himself mentally. "And now for a practical demonstration." Neville rose from his side of the table and wandered off toward the other end of the greenhouse. A couple of minutes later he returned with a leaf from a Mesopotamian True Fig, about the size of his hand, which he placed on the table. Neville stared at the leaf, his mouth silently rehearsing the spell. Finally he pronounced "Morphio," as he made a precise gesture with his wand.
The leaf first turned from green to a brownish purple, then contracted into a circular shape, about midway in size between a Sickle and a Galleon, covered in what appeared to be parchment. "I went to Madam Pomfrey the other day for a talk about -- well, what goes on between men and women." Neville blushed even redder than before. "I like you a lot, and I hope you like me too, and please understand that I would never do anything to hurt you..."
Neville placed his fingers on the transfigured object and slid it across the table, toward Luna. "If you just want to be friends, that's all right. But I'd really like it if we could," he paused and gulped, "start going together. Would you take this as a sign that above all I want to protect you from harm, and -- er, unintended consequences? Mind you, this is the first -- er -- such thing I've ever made, so I don't know that I'd rely on it to...protect against anything." Neville lifted his head and attempted to look Luna in the face.
Luna beamed, and reached out her slim, pale hand to cover Neville's hand and the condom he had transfigured. Then she leaned across the table, and kissed Neville deeply. Transfiguration revision was forgotten for the rest of that afternoon.