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

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

NEVILLE DEXTEROUS

chapter five

kung fu for dummies

It would be a fairly safe assumption to say that Severus Snape was not particularly fond of any activity which forced him to spend more time than strictly necessary with any of his students. If he thought he could get away with it he would just sit at the front of his class and read a magazine while the delinquents amused themselves. Presumably this would involve much sodomy. Snape supposed kids were into that sort of thing these days.

However, the Board of Governors would probably not take too kindly to such a course of action, so Snape was forced to interact with his students. Of course, if he was going to be forced to speak to the hopeless dunderheads then he may as well try and get a bit of fun out of it.

Two of his favourite targets in recent years had been Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Oh, sure, Hermione Granger could be amusing at times, but she was far too easy as a target. Ron Weasley was another prime target for abuse, but most insults seemed wasted on his limited intelligence.

So Potter and Longbottom were always his favourite targets. It had been so much fun in the early years to watch Longbottom in particular melt at the sight of him. Before he had become dreamy, of course.

And young Potter, who had once presented a bit of a challenge to Snape. Now he was just annoying.

So, you might get the feeling that Snape would not be pleased to have to teach Longbottom and Potter Kung Fu. The feeling would not exactly be misplaced.

Snape himself had only ever attended martial arts lessons in the summer after his fifth year, when he had decided that if James Potter disarmed him again then he ought to be prepared to break his nose in eight different places. He had taken three lessons before he had been kicked out when he had "accidentally" cast the Imperius Curse on several students and forced them to attack the instructor for his own amusement. It had served the instructor right. How dare he act as if he was better than Snape...

Luckily, Hogwarts did have its own dojo that the three were able to use. For some reason Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had decided it was their business and they ought to turn up to practice sessions as well. Snape did his very best to ignore them, though Granger made an appalling amount of noise every time she and Weasley sparred, which inevitably wound up with him getting booted in the soft bits.

"Oh, Ron, my love! I am so sorry. I do not know my own strength! Please, let me kiss it better!"

It was rather hard to concentrate with that going on.

Snape's first instruction for the two boys had been to find clothing that they felt most comfortable in. For Longbottom this had been a pair of tight-fitting leather trousers, a tight black T-shirt and a long black, leather coat, leaving him looking like he was about to star in a Hollywood action film. For Potter this had been a karate outfit that had obviously at one point belonged to his cousin. Snape could see the merits of Potter's choice of outfit. For one thing, the enemy would probably never find the small boy in the mass of clothing.

Snape had adopted a skin-tight black jumpsuit that had gained much appreciation from the females in Hogwarts. By contrast his duelling partner, who was there to make even numbers, was wearing a hospital robe. It was Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Right, I shall begin with a quick demonstration. Then I will begin teaching you a few basics," Snape announced.

The "quick demonstration" involved breaking every bone in Lockhart's body and mending it again at least twice. It helped Snape relieve a lot of the pent up aggression he was feeling, and he was sure it would not attract as much media attention as last year when he had force-fed all of his third years poison and told them they had an hour to brew the antidote before they began forcefully defecating their own intestines.

Then he pitted Longbottom and Potter against each other. Longbottom learnt fairly quickly, and was soon hitting Potter with a wide range of high kicks. Potter was not a quick learner. Most of his attacks still seemed to involve his nails, which Snape suspected had not been trimmed since he had come to Hogwarts.

Snape eventually grew tried of healing Longbottom's face from the scratch wounds and dismissed the pair of them. He wondered how on Earth he was supposed to survive an hour a week for the rest of the year with these imbeciles.

Still, at least he got to take a hundred points from Potter later on that evening when he attempted to maul out Draco Malfoy's eyes.

###

"Look, I got a letter from Harry," Sirius announced happily. He and Remus were having tea in the house they shared with Augusta Longbottom. Augusta had been fairly concerned about Sirius asking Remus to move in. She was well aware that the pair were close, and that, as she was eighty seven years old and asleep for most of the day, it would be fairly easy for the two of them to hide if they were shagging in that shoddily built metal contraption Sirius had put in the back garden. He'd claimed it was for Remus during the full moon, yet it obviously did not serve its purpose as Remus had already escaped twice and eaten the neighbour's cat.

Actually, he hadn't even been a werewolf when he had ripped apart the cat and feasted on the gooey goodness that spilled forth...

Augusta was still asleep when Hedwig flew in and dropped the letter squarely on Sirius' forehead before harassing Remus (the bird was smart. It knew which one of them had the owl treats. Sirius could not be trusted not to transform into a dog and eat them if he was left alone with them). The two read the letter together.

"So, his new Defence teacher is a Death Eater," Remus said.

"I'll never understand why you quit the second time," Sirius said. "I mean, the students didn't care that you turned into a flesh-eating monster once a month. As I recall, most teenage girls do that as well anyway."

"Yes, I am glad to see that your time in Azkaban did not affect your maturity."

Sirius sighed. "Dumbledore offered me the job. I really ought to have taken it. But I couldn't stand the idea of being away from my darling Augusta for so long."

Remus said nothing. He tried to pretend that he did not know what Augusta and Sirius did in the house whenever he left the room for any period longer than three minutes. It was easier to get through life when you didn't acknowledge you were currently sitting in a seat that had been defiled by your best friend and a woman more than fifty years his senior.

"I maybe ought to have taken the job," Sirius said thoughtfully. "Not for me, but for Harry. I mean, I'm the closest thing to a father he's ever had, but with everything that's happened I've barely seen him. First there was the whole imprisoned for murder thing, and then I was on the run. And I barely saw him last summer because of the wedding. I never even got to hear all about his new girlfriend."

"It's Hermione. You've met her before," Remus reminded him. "Muggle-born with bushy hair. You motor-boated her at the reception of your wedding."

"Funny, I thought that was the stripper from the bachelor party."

"She was."

"Ah, lovely girl," Sirius said, feeling it all coming back to him now. "Massive breasts." He sat for a moment, obviously thinking about something. Remus did not need to be a mind reader to know what that something was.

"Excuse me a moment, Remus," Sirius said, standing up. "I'm going to see if Augusta fancies a bit of a tumble."

Remus' selective hearing kicked in, and he reread Harry's letter, paying particular attention to the part where Harry complained that the whole world was against him because Snape had given him a detention for randomly attacking another student.

###

Life was certainly on the improvement for Ginny Weasley. Harry and that hussy Hermione seemed to be having constant arguments these days. They might break up any day now. And yet Ginny strangely found she didn't care. All her thoughts now seemed to be about a very different boy.

"Neville, oh, sweet Neville," she sighed dreamily as she made her way down the corridor with her classmates, none of whom noticed a word she'd said. She didn't mind being left alone to think about him.

He was so sweet. And so charming and handsome too. And when he looked at her she could almost see the love and admiration in his eyes. It made her almost giddy to think that Neville had fallen for her as she had fallen for him.

But she had to play it cool, just like the book she had bought told her (A Witch's Guide to Enchanting her Man). That unfortunately meant she wasn't allowed to build a small shrine to him at the foot of her bed, much like the one that had once proudly displayed her two most treasured possessions: some of Harry's hair she'd fished from the drain's of the boy's showers and a pair of his dirty underpants he'd thrown out after a particularly long Quidditch match had forced him to choose between ruining his underpants and having to go to the toilet and risk the Snitch being spotted in the time he was absent.

Ginny smiled as she thought about those underpants. Even if she was now in love with Neville, she could still appreciate the memory of that brilliant day she had obtained them.

Ginny was just rounding a corridor on the fifth floor when suddenly a hand was clapped across her mouth. She tried to scream, but another hand snaked around her waist and pulled her away from her classmates, who all seemed unconcerned about her abduction. She tried to struggle, but her captor was obviously too strong.

Please, save me, Neville, she silently pleaded.