Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.

A/N: None of you asked for it. None of you wanted it. In fact, you'd probably have been better off had it never happened, but here is part two nonetheless.

A returning hero (sort of), a Death Eater with a vile plot, and a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher from Harry's past with a dark secret you'll totally never be able to guess. The epic Neville Trilogy continues...

NEVILLE DEXTEROUS

chapter one

obligatory train journey

Draco Malfoy awoke suddenly from his dream, drenched from head to toe in sweat. He'd had this horrifying nightmare, where Granger had become hot and forced him to aid in rescuing Potter from the clutches of Lord Voldemort, which had inadvertently resulted in the death of his father. And now she had insisted that she come with them to a Weasley family dinner to celebrate the return of whatever runt had been in some other country.

It was, with horror, that he noticed an arm draped around his waist and that someone was pressed into his back, with hot breath in his ear. He turned his head slightly and discovered that his nightmare was not, in fact, a dream, and that he currently had a bed-mate to prove it.

Ron Weasley, who had murdered his father, was spooning him at this very moment.

Malfoy swore loudly, and elbowed Weasley rather roughly in the stomach.

"Hmmm, Harry, don't be so rough," Weasley groaned.

Malfoy managed to remove himself from Weasley's iron grip. He dashed as fast as he could for the bathroom. He had grown up in a house where pretty much every other room was a bathroom. Now he was staying in a house where in every other room there was someone who would kill him if he woke them up. He got the wrong room twice, which lead to much cursing in his direction, before he gave up and decided he would throw up in whatever room he picked next.

He got lucky and found the bathroom. Within minutes Granger had wandered in and began stroking his hair as he emptied his stomach.

"Oh, Draco, my love, how horrible for you," she sighed.

Malfoy had tried many times to stop her from using his first name. He hated it. Only his parents ever used Draco, and he'd liked it that way. Even his best friends (in other words, his hired goons) in Slytherin called him Malfoy.

"Up yours, bitch," he choked out.

"Oh, Draco, my darling, you're delirious!" she gasped, before trying to press her chest into his back. It was certainly not helpful to have an erection whilst vomiting.

###

The Weasley's annual trip to Platform Nine and Three Quarters somehow always managed to be a frantic, rushed affair. Once Molly had even tried getting them all up at the crack of dawn, but the plan had gone to hell when an eight-year-old George had gotten hold of a wand and flooded the top four floors, but left the bottom ones curiously dry.

Today there were many issues. One of them was Malfoy, who was refusing to get in the back seat of the car with Fred and George. His suspicions about the pair's intentions had been aroused due to the fact that they did not actually live at the Burrow and they most certainly were not going to Hogwarts this year. Molly Weasley, however, was having none of it. As far as she was concerned, Malfoy would sit where he was told to sit.

Another problem was Hermione, who was insisting on sending owls off to Harry every hour. However, Harry took about three days to reply, so now all the owls the Weasley's owned were at Sirius' house and they were out of Floo Powder, so Hermione was running about like a lunatic and trying desperately to come with some way of communicating with Harry.

Ginny Weasley, however, was glad with all the delay. She had been up since dawn trying to look as beautiful as possible. She'd been studying in France for the last year, and so hadn't seen Harry in so long and was determined to look absolutely stunning when he first saw her...

It wasn't that she resented Hermione (aka the skank). But she believed that the relationship was doomed to failure. Harry would never be able to handle sharing the attention with Hermione, perhaps the only person on earth more prone to hysterical over-reaction than he was.

So, whenever the relationship turned tits up, Ginny hoped that Harry would turn around and there would be his sweet, caring, sensitive, drop dead gorgeous friend, and Harry would sob into her beautiful shoulder before eventually having beautiful sex, making beautiful children and then spending the rest of their life together, shagging twice a day.

Unfortunately Ginny was well aware that she was not a particularly good looking girl. She was terribly skinny, pale, freckled and flat-chested. Her mother had assured her that she would grow out yet, but until then Ginny may as well have been the seventh boy in the family.

She'd applied, removed and reapplied her make-up so many times. When she eventually came down the stairs she'd been at it for about four hours.

Malfoy had been shouting at Ginny's mother up until this point, but now was looking very much like a dog who had caught sight of a very large, juicy joint of meat.

Ginny's mother, however, was not impressed.

"Ginny, that make-up is totally inappropriate," she scolded. "That red lipstick makes you look like a scarlet woman!"

Ginny, however, had waited her whole life for Harry to react to her appearance the way Malfoy was now. She was not prepared to give up the new look without a fight, but soon her mother was trying to force a set of robes five sizes to big over her head.

Incidentally, her mother did not think, "But then Harry can't see my legs," was a valid reason not to have to wear the robes.

Ginny was fairly upset the whole trip to Kings' Cross, and was stuffed in beside Malfoy in the front passenger seat. Now that Hermione was in the car, Malfoy was utterly uninterested in looking at Ginny anymore.

They arrived at the station in the usual flurry. Her mother grabbed her by the arm and practically threw her through the barrier, causing her to stumble and land in a pile. Ron quickly followed, coming crashing down on her. She managed to scramble to her feet, totally winded.

Hermione came through shortly after, and was bouncing up and down on her feet trying to find Harry.

"Oh God, what if he's not here? What if the Dursley's beat him all summer and locked him in the cupboard again and won't let him come to Hogwarts?" she wailed.

"Oh, if only," Malfoy muttered.

"Hermione, he'll be fine," Ginny said, feeling that her chances of being noticed by Harry might be better if Hermione was not running about shrieking. "He stayed at Sirius' all summer. You just get to your prefect meeting, and I'll find him and make sure he's alright."

Being reminded about her prefect duties distracted Hermione long enough for Ginny to get onto the train. She managed to find a compartment to herself, and quickly pulled off the robes her mother had forced upon her to reveal her previous outfit. A tight fitting black tee and short, white skirt. She quickly reapplied the lipstick her mother had taken off, and went to find Harry.

Ginny eventually found Harry in a compartment with, predictably, her brother. She cursed for a moment. Ron could ruin everything! Her first course of action had to be to get Ron out of the picture.

She took a few calming deep breaths before stepping into the apartment. Neither of the boys even looked up from where they were playing chess.

Ginny personally thought that they could do with another pastime. All they ever seemed to do in their spare time was play chess constantly. You'd think they would read a book or something...

"Ron," Ginny said as calmly as she could muster. "There's a dog in the hall. I think it's done a big poo."

Ron looked up from his chess game, totally perplexed.

"So?" he asked.

"Well, don't you want to go look at it?" she asked.

Ron stared at her for a few moments longer. Then he shrugged and stood up to wander out, leaving an outraged Harry behind. Harry wasn't angry for long though, as he started switching the chess pieces around.

"Hiya, Harry," Ginny said. Harry looked at her for the first time, and Ginny felt the familiar surge of blood to her cheeks. She sat down opposite him as slowly as she could manage. She'd been rehearsing this for about a year.

"So, Harry, did you miss me?" she asked, feeling out of breath. Harry looked blank.

"Er... why?"

"Well, you know, I was in France for a year," Ginny explained.

"Oh," Harry said, before turning back to rigging the chess game. "I never even noticed you were gone."

Ginny suddenly felt the tears welling up. Desperate not to cry in front of Harry, she burst from the room with a sob. She pushed past several people to get to her compartment, where she curled up into a ball and wept.

A whole year and he hadn't even noticed she was gone? She'd thought about nothing else.

She was there for a while. The trolley lady poked her head in at one point, and she had a feeling Malfoy had come in, demanded to know where Granger was, then left. But other than that she was left alone to her misery.

Until someone arrived and sat down opposite her.

"Er, Ginny?"

Ginny looked up, rubbing the tears out of her eyes, and gasped.

"No, I must be delusional. It can't be."

"Ginny?" Neville asked.

"Oh my God, you're bloody gorgeous," Ginny gasped. She suddenly clapped her hand to her mouth. She couldn't believe that Neville Longbottom, that tubby little boy who'd taken her to her first dance, was now this unbelievably handsome young man sitting in front of her.

"Er, are you alright?" he asked.

"Oh my god, he actually asked me if I'm alright. And he's perfect. Oh, kiss him. The lips are exposed. Go for the lips!"

"I'm fine, thank you," she managed to say, feeling her grin cutting open her cheeks.

"Why were you crying?" Neville asked.

"Oh, you know," Ginny said, giving a sigh. She rested her chin on her hand to look at him.

"Ginny, you're drooling."

"Shit! And any second now he's going to realise I've drifted off and been daydreaming about how he and I will be married and have lots of kids and.... Oh, he's staring, with those beautiful brown eyes. Oh, Ginny, please, say something! Say anything!"

"Impregnate me."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"Bravo, Ginny Weasley. Bravo."

"Shut up, brain!" she snapped. Then she realised, to her horror, that she had said it out loud and slapped a hand across her mouth in shock.

"Er, Ginny," Neville began. "That's fairly flattering and all, but I'm afraid that I'm not really looking for anyone to have any of my children just yet."

Ginny removed her hand just long enough to add, "I'll take birth control then," before she replaced it and decided that tonight would probably be as good a night as any to hurl herself off of a cliff.

"That's nice, Ginny," Neville said. "All the same, maybe we should just be friends." There was something about the way he said it that told her he was very sceptical as to whether even being friends was a good idea. Ginny felt like crying again. First she'd messed up with Harry, and now Neville.

"Look, I'll talk to you later," Neville said, getting up to leave. "I was just in the middle of my prefect duties and thought I'd make sure you were alright."

Neville left, leaving Ginny feeling rather hot and bothered. She began to fan herself with a copy of the Daily Prophet.