DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling
A/N: If I'm perfectly honest this is probably one of my favourite chapters, but then the first chapters of Numquam and Dexterous are probably close behind that. Guess I always get off to a better start than finish, hopefully you'll enjoy this one as much as I liked playing around with it.
The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace
NEVILLE FALSUS
chapter one
where babies come from
It was a nippy late February night and the Golden Trio was curled up on the sofa all adding the finishing touches to their respective essays. This meant, of course, that Harry and Ron had written their names at the top of the page and Hermione had done the rest. It was a Potions essay, and Snape never noticed these things anyway. He tended to just give Hermione an Outstanding and give Ron and Harry Poors. Then, about six months later, he would publish Hermione's essay in a Potions Journal under his own name.
Harry was enjoying several dirty magazines. Ron had tried reading them once, but didn't see the point of them, so he'd just gotten back to scratching himself and passing wind, two of his very favourite pastimes. Indeed, chess was probably the only thing he loved more.
Hermione took a pause from her essay to stare into space with a deep and meaningful look on her beautiful face.
"I think I'm very glad that McGonagall was made Headmistress instead of Snape," she said. "Her sharp policy changes have been very beneficial for the school. Why, just last week I saw a Slytherin holding a door open for an old lady."
"Yeah, but that was just so that she'd step straight into the bear trap he'd hidden halfway up the corridor," Harry pointed out.
"Yes, but all the same, I think the school is a better place for it." There was silence for a moment again.
"McGonagall's quite handy with a wand as well," Harry said at last. "She was pretty something when we had to defend the castle from that army of orcs."
"We never would have managed to beat them off if it hadn't been for those Time-Travelling Samurai Warriors dropping in to use the loo," Ron said. "That was a fortunate coincidence."
"Between that and the Christmas exams, I'm surprised Professor Flitwick had the time to launch his Master Plan for World Domination," Hermione said.
Ron nodded. "Thank goodness Neville managed to find the Sword of Balthazar in the Cave of Mortis Doominus; otherwise we'd never have managed to stop him and Zombie Hitler."
"I just wish we'd been able to get to them before they destroyed Wales," Hermione sighed mournfully. The trio took a moment to remember all the poor sheep that lost their lives that day. Harry had a bit of a sleazy looking grin on his face, but Hermione chose to ignore it.
"What do you guys think of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this week then?" Hermione asked. "That essay he gave us was a bit of a joke, right?"
Tired of lawsuits from grieving families, the Board of Governors had decided to appoint a Guest Defence Against he Dark Arts teacher every week, on the basis that it would probably not be long enough for them to get themselves killed (this had not been true for Professor Rowan, but that had been the week of the orc invasion, so the board felt it was hardly fair to dismiss the system just on that basis). This had led to several memorable professors, including Fred Weasley, who had turned up for a second week claiming, "I'm not Fred, I'm George." He had arrived for a third week with, "I'm the real George, last week it was just Fred pretending to be me!" The fourth time he had shown up with, "That Fred, he's always pulling pranks like this. I'm the real George." The fifth time had just been an optimistic, "Don't suppose you're that gullible then?"
This week their teacher had been Professor Wed Freasley, who looked a lot like Fred Weasley but with a giant, fake moustache.
Still, for whatever reason, Ron was getting his best ever grades in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Hermione was very proud of him. It had only been a few weeks since the three American Exchange Students he had been seeing behind each other's backs had mysteriously died of sexual exhaustion, and he was handling it a lot better now than he had at first. He was lucky to have such wonderful friends as Harry and her.
"Want to play chess?" Ron asked Harry suddenly. Harry took a moment to weigh up his options. On the one hand he had never even come close to beating Ron at chess (even the game where Ron had graciously allowed Harry to field eight queens instead of pawns), but on the other hand his arrogance (or, as he referred to it, "his acknowledgement of his own brilliance") would never allow him to admit that he could never beat Ron.
Harry eventually agreed. It took longer to find all the chess pieces than it did for Ron to stuff him.
###
Neville had problems of his own. Sure, he'd saved the world at least four times in as many months, but he couldn't deal with his former best friend turned stalker. She managed to corner him in the Great Hall to try whatever ridiculous idea she'd come up with this week to convince him to date her.
He braced himself for the worst.
"Neville, I'm pregnant," Ginny told him. "And you're the father."
"Now, Ginny, the problem with that is that we'd have to have sex for you to get pregnant," Neville told her with a sigh.
"No, no, no!" Ginny shook her head. "Wizards and witches don't have to have sex to get pregnant. It's magic!"
"I'm fairly sure I'd know if that was true," Neville said. Sure, his grandmother had never answered his questions about where babies came from, but he had always had a vague idea. Then, over the summer, Sirius had taken it upon himself to give Neville the talk about sex; the one where the adult tries to mortify you by destroying everything wonderful you'd ever thought about the opposite sex and made it sound so disgusting that you'd never want to have sex again.
"This is almost as bad as when you tried to slip that potion into my pumpkin juice," Neville said. "Remember? Ron eventually mounted the pig roast."
"It was supposed to make you admit your hidden feelings," Ginny said meekly. "It was for Valentine's Day. I thought it would be romantic."
"Yeah, well, there was nothing romantic about Ron doing that on the dinner table. Oh no, don't cry again."
For some reason, Ginny always insisted on crying that little bit louder when he asked her not to. This attracted the attention of Neville's second major problem; one Severus Snape.
"How can you abandon me and our child?" Ginny wailed.
"What's this, Longbottom?" Snape asked. "Abandoning your responsibilities as a father? That'll be fifty points from Gryffindor."
"But sir, she's not really pregnant," Neville pleaded. "She's just trying to trick me into going out with her!"
"Accusing another student of slander is a very serious matter. Another ten points from Gryffindor are in order, I think."
Neville sighed. "I just can't win, can I?"
"Five points from Gryffindor for that defeatist attitude, Longbottom."
Neville decided that the only way to get Snape and Ginny off of his back would be to find a girlfriend of his own. Unfortunately, the rumour that Neville was looking for a girlfriend and was fairly desperate spread around the school fairly quickly, and Neville soon found himself being serenaded at dinnertime in front of the whole school by Ginny.
Of course, after Ginny had left the Great Hall in the middle of dinner in floods of tears, none of the other girls in the school seemed to want anything to do with him. This was most annoying. Even Lavender Brown, who up until the start of the year had practically thrown herself at him on a daily basis, was not interested.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, Neville thought as he approached Luna Lovegood.
Later on he had wondered if he could have phrased his proposal any better
"Hey, Luna, you don't have any friends. How about we go on a date?" Neville asked.
Luna puffed out her cheeks in anger. "Excuse me," she snapped. "Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there!"
"Oh, sorry," Neville said. "Look, I'm fairly desperate here. How about it?"
"It's awfully rude to talk over other people," Luna replied. She turned to what looked a lot like thin air and asked, "I'm sorry Colonel, what were you saying?"
She refused to let him leave until "the Colonel" had had his full say.
Neville briefly considered asking Hannah Abbot, but quickly decided that he wasn't quite that desperate.