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

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

NEVILLE DEXTEROUS

chapter four

the fourth musketeer

Neville was quite surprised when he received the message from a first year that he was wanted in Dumbledore's office. He would have thought that, being Headmaster, Dumbledore would have had some sort of system for summoning students, rather than ambushing a random first year and having them deliver the message.

Harry had not been summoned. He had just been standing beside Neville near the time that the poor, quivering first year had approached Neville, and as such had assumed that Dumbledore could not possibly want to talk to Neville and actually wanted to talk to Harry and that the first year was just incompetent and had delivered the message to Neville by accident.

So now they both sat facing Dumbledore, who had not moved since they had come in.

Neville wondered if he had died. That would be most inconvenient. Harry would almost certainly overreact and accuse him of murdering Dumbledore and most of the wizarding world would probably believe him. Neville contemplated this for a moment. Perhaps if he carved a mark in his beautiful, perfectly formed forehead and claimed it was a scar from a dark curse then people might think it was wonderful when he started acting like a total arsehole.

"I suppose," Dumbledore began (either he was alive or his brain had died mid-sentence and it had merely taken his one thousand-year-old lips this long to realise they had wanted to say something). "I suppose you both know why you are here?"

Neville looked at Harry.

"Of course, sir," Harry said enthusiastically.

"Actually, sir," Neville interjected. "I have no idea why we're here." Dumbledore looked expectantly at Harry.

"Okay, I was lying," Harry muttered, now looking fairly annoyed. Dumbledore seemed to contemplate it for a moment.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you simply have too many thoughts to keep in your head?" he asked them. Neville shrugged.

"Perhaps you ought to just write them down," Neville suggested.

"Splendid idea!" Dumbledore exclaimed. He began shuffling through the mountain of parchment on his desk. "I'm sure I must have written it down somewhere."

He took about ten minutes rummaging, during which time he uncovered several girlie magazines that Neville decided to pretend he didn't see (a girl who looked strangely like Hermione seemed to feature on the front cover of one of them).

"Yes, aha!" Dumbledore announced triumphantly. His hand emerged from the pile brandishing an arbitrary piece of parchment. "Here it is. Dear Professor Dumbledore. We are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..."

"Sir, I think that's the wrong piece of parchment," Neville interrupted.

Dumbledore looked extremely disappointed.

"You mean I haven't been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"

Actually he looked like he was about to cry. Neville felt strangely like crying himself.

"You're already the Headmaster," Harry snapped. "Now, come on, start telling me how awesome I am."

"Yes, indeed!" Dumbledore said. "Right, you two are wizarcs." He looked at the two of them for a while.

"We know, sir," Neville replied eventually.

"Yes, yes, quite. And, as wizarcs, you will require special training."

"You mean, like mental magic spells that make Snape's head explode without even saying anything?" Harry asked.

"Oh, goodness gracious, no!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "We can't have that! Why, think of how traumatised the students will be. I know they all love Professor Snape so much, after all."

"Then what will we be learning?" Neville asked.

"Kung fu."

Neville was utterly perplexed.

"You mean Muggle martial arts?" he asked, feeling an eyebrow shooting upwards.

"Awesome!" Harry gasped. "Now I can finally kick Malfoy's ass!"

Harry was fairly skinny and pale, but no one in the entire school managed to look quite as underfed as Malfoy. In fact, Neville often wondered if a little nick by the Bludger might finish him off...

It was part of the reason Neville was a Beater.

"And, naturally, Professor Snape will be overseeing your instruction." Dumbledore looked fairly pleased about all this. Harry looked pleased too. Perhaps it was the thought of beating on a professor for extended periods and pretending he was learning something.

Dumbledore rambled on for a bit before suggesting they go to their Common Rooms before their bedtimes. Neville decided it best not to mention that it wasn't even lunchtime yet and he was an hour late for Transfiguration because of this conversation. Instead he asked about Cedric.

"You know that one of your teachers is a vampire, right?" Neville asked. Dumbledore waved it off.

"Oh, people have been saying that for years. I'll tell you the same thing I told the Board of Governors. Just because he avoids sunlight, garlic and religious symbols does not mean that Severus is a vampire! And he assures me that the blood of innocent virgins he keeps in his supply closet is purely for use in Potion making."

###

"I just don't trust him, Ginny," Neville said at lunch that day.

Circumstance had worked against Neville, it seemed. Back when he had first come to Hogwarts he had been fat, ugly and stupid. Of course he had no friends back then. No one wanted to be friends with someone so unimportant. After fifth year when he had suddenly hit a growth spurt and become the most gorgeous thing on legs, he had expected that everyone would want to be friends with him. However, most people seemed to regard him as the unofficial fourth member of "The Golden Trio." And Harry was very picky about who was allowed to speak to his group.

So, Neville only had the few brave ones like Lavender Brown occasionally following him about. But Lavender seemed to have given up her interest. And these days most people seemed to follow Harry about anyway. He made a lot more noise than Neville and so, despite being so much shorter, was a lot easier to detect. He also didn't object quite as much as Neville did when they took pictures of him on the toilet.

It bothered Neville that so many of the girls seemed to find Harry so attractive. His hair was always a total mess and he hardly ever showered. Perhaps the smell was the reason Ron kept to following him about so much...

On what perhaps might be considered an unrelated note, it was a curious coincidence that another of Harry's friends, Professor Rubeus Hagrid, was another well-documented fan of odd-smelling creatures that could bite your head off...

Ginny was a special circumstance. She was focusing a lot of attention on Neville. He supposed that being the only boy who gave her the time of day might have something to do with this. Maybe some other guys would pay a bit more attention to her if she wasn't so intense when it came to Harry.

"I mean, he's clearly a vampire," Neville said. She nodded along with him. A bit of drool appeared in the corner of her mouth.

Neville made a silent note that he might have to find a new best friend other than Ginny.

Neville sighed and turned back to look at Cedric. He'd told the class that he liked his meat "very rare." His lunch appeared to be pretty much raw. Actually, it was a live rabbit.

Neville suddenly felt very sorry for the poor little rabbit.

"And did you see? Three Hufflepuff first years have already disappeared this month," Neville said. "I mean, I won't exactly miss them, but what if something happens to one of the half-way decent looking ones?"

"Yeah," Ginny sighed dreamily. Neville rolled his eyes and went back to his food.

He really wished she wouldn't stare at him like that. If Harry had ever actually noticed her, even he probably would have been annoyed by it.

While he ate his lunch he tried to make a plan. He had to get it through to her that he was just her friend, and there would never be anything more between them. He couldn't let her keep doing this to herself. She had to be put out of her misery.

But by the time he had finished his lunch he still had no idea what to say to her.

"Er, Ginny?" Neville said. Ginny suddenly perked up, wiping the drool away from her mouth with her sleeve.

"Yes, Neville?" she asked. Neville made the mistake of looking straight into her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes. So full of hope. So full of love and innocence.

His Y chromosome took over for a moment, and he could picture himself doing the most disgusting and dirty things imaginable to her while those beautiful eyes looked up at him, full of tears and yet begging him to go on...

He suddenly felt fairly hot and bothered.

"Er, nothing," Neville squeaked, suddenly feeling like an awkward eleven year old who'd been hit with a full-body-bind jinx and discovered that it made absolutely every single part of his body had gone rigid. He got up and left. He turned back to look at her right before he walked out the door, and started waving like a lunatic. She didn't even look at him.

He couldn't believe it.

Ginny Weasley was playing it cool with him!!!

Oh Merlin. He had never wanted her so bad.