Chapter 8: Keep You Warm

"It's driving the lot of us mad!" Ginny ranted to her best friends as they strode down the one of the openb-air corridors on a bright, sunny Hogwarts day. Neville nodded along sympathetically. Between them, Luna bit her lip, and for the first time in her life, was glad she wasn't in the same House as her two best mates.

In the weeks following the Quidditch match, of course, some gossip had trickled back to her, mostly through Padma Patil, whose twin sister Pavarti, actually shared a dorm with the wench. Hearing that second-hand was bad enough. But communally living with the bird had to be even worse.

"I mean, everyone knows that Hermione and my brother belong together, but does Lavender Brown care...?" Ginny halted mid-tirade and managed to send a guilty look in Luna's direction. Luna merely shrugged it off. People would be more quick to pair two best mates together as a potential couple rather than with her - someone from a completely different House who was merely a friend. Barely even friends, more of an acquaintence. Though she and Ron had gotten closer ever since the Battle of the Department of Mysteries.

"Sssh! Keep it dark - here they come!" Neville implored in a hiss.

The Silver Trio rounded a corner and fell into step beside Harry and Hermione were murmuring in low tones about what sounded like a completely unrelated topic. Luna wondered if the pair of them were having to pull subjects out of the air - anything to avoid talking about the elephant in Gryffindor Tower.

As the quintet rounded the corner, they pulled up short: on one of the stone benches lining this hallway, Lavender Brown was practically astride Ron's lap while making out with him so indecently, it was hard to tell whose hands were whose.

To her credit, Hermione held herself with remarkable composure, as she remarked politely, "Excuse me, I think I have to go vomit..." She turned and clacked down the hallway, somehow refraining from not breaking into a run. Luna showed no such compunction, her bottom lip quivering and she had to turn her face away sharply and run to keep her distress from becoming apparent to Harry; she still caught a flash of him sending a baffled look towards Ginny, who merely waved him down.

Her feet carried her to the library; she wasn't really sure why. As Luna entered, she could hear purposeful footsteps following behind her.

"Ginevra, please, I..."

The chuckle was decidely masculine. "Don't let her hear you calling that."

Rounding into an empty row of bookshelves, Luna glanced back over her shoulder and waited for Neville to catch up with her, smiling at him weakly. "Oh, I'm the only one who can. She doesn't mind."

Neville whistled. "Lucky lass."

Luna glanced down at her shoes. "I haven't been feeling very lucky as of lately..."

Warmly taking her hand, Neville guided her to a reading table, rubbing his finger over her knuckles. "I know it's hard..." He winced as slightly raised voices percolated over to them from what sounded like only a row or two over.

"... perfect liberty to kiss whomever he likes! I really couldn't care less!"

Neville's cringe deepened. "Maybe... you and Hermione could support each other?" A beat, and then he dismissed this. "No, bad idea. It's a strain enough on all of us that Lavender is jockeying with her for Ron at the moment."

At present, Luna surmised there really wasn't much jockeying - if anything, Lavender had already won - but she didn't voice this.

Luna exhaled shakily. "Hermione knows."

"What? Knows what?"

She sighed. "That I'm... in..." She srunched up her eyes through a hitched sob.

Neville's face fell with caring. "Oh, love... I'm right sorry."

Luna wiped at her eyes. "She was a better sport about it than I would have expected. I know she tolerates me at best..."

"Well, maybe knowing you both are pining after the same bloke will change her opinion of you," Neville pointed out kindly. "If nothing else, it shows you have excellent taste!"

Luna grinned wetly. "I also have excellent taste in friends." Her smile broadened; Neville smiled back, tucking her into his arm.

"I've been thinking..."

"Have you? Splendid; it'll give Gin and I a break from helping you with homework." Luna meant nothing bad by the teasing joust, and thankfully Neville knew it, for how he bumped her shoulder.

"Shut it! I've been thinking about Slughorn offering that Christmas party, yeah, for the Slug Club. I was considering asking someone else, but seeing as how she's already in the Club anyway..."

Luna took this in intriguingly, her silver orbs expanding as her face brightened like the dawn. "Neville Longbottom, are you asking me out...?" She felt touched, and even pleased.

Neville grinned bashfully. "Consider it a making up to you for not getting you into the Yule Ball two years ago. You come on my arm, you're guaranteed access. Besides, Gin's already going with Dean, I expect..."

Bounding onto her tiptoes, Luna pecked Neville on the cheek. "I'd like that very much!"

Neville came to collect Luna at the Ravenclaw portrait hole on Christmas Eve night. He was as adorably bashful as ever, though not nearly as awkward as he had been when they were children, or even two Yuletides ago when he'd infamously kissed Ginny under the mistletoe.

For the night, Luna put her torment over Ronald and Lavender out of her head and held Neville gently as they settled into a companionable sway along the dance floor. She found Slughorn to be a bloviating and rude blowhard, exchanging almost self-satisfactory pleasantries with Neville while barely giving her the time of day, and only just remembering her name. The Potions Master mumbled something about knowing her father before shuffling on.

"The Abraxans have a hold of him, and no mistake..." Luna mused dryly.

Neville chuckled. "And what is an Abraxan?"

Luna just smiled and came to rest her head on her best mate's shoulder. "Let's just say they separate the true men from the boys." She beamed up at him through her blonde lashes. Neville grinned back, before something past Luna's shoulder caught his attention.

"Then, I suppose the Abraxans aren't just bothering Slughorn tonight - get a load of that bastard McLaggen..." The almost-Gryffindor Keeper was staggering through the revelers, bellowing "GRANGER! Where are ya, lassie?"

At this, Neville went pale. "Oh, Godric... don't tell me..." He huffed out a breath through his nose. "Once again, if only I could have had a bird on each arm..."

Luna reached up and wound her own arms about Neville's neck. "You can't be the knight in shining armor to every lass, Nev. Besides, Hermione's a big girl; she can handle herself."

The party broke up just before midnight, and without any indication that McLaggen had found his missing date, thank Godric!

"I'd wager good Galleons she left the party without him..." Neville chuckled as he gentlemanly escorted Luna back to Ravenclaw Tower. "What possessed the lady to ask the likes of him, I wonder...?"

"Isn't it obvious? To get back at Ronald," Luna hummed.

"And what about me?" Neville turned to her as they came to a halt in front of Sam the Eagle. "Did you go with me to get back at Ron?"

Luna shook her head fervently. "No, of course not!" She hung her head. "It isn't as though Ronald would have even been bothered. He's too busy fiddling about with his girl to even know I exist. It's like I'm invisible..."

"Hey: I know what it's like to be invisible," Neville chuffed bitterly. "Believe me." Luna blinked at him with her big, silver eyes, sensing that he meant something deeper by that and wondering what it was. Neville just cracked a smile. "But it's nice to know that... one person sees you."

Luna nodded. "It's good to be seen."

There was a moment of silence as the pair stared into each other's eyes. When Luna finally averted her gaze, it was up, and she grinned dreamily.

"Mistletoe..."

She could feel the Nargles' pheromone wafting down and settling over her. Neville's green eyes darkened slightly even as he studied her intensely.

A beat, and then the two best mates were suddenly ravaging each other. The way their lips slammed together in a passionate kiss was earnest, almost violent. As she melted pliantly up into Neville's clumsy yet intense lips, Luna had to conclude that for her first, she couldn't do much worse.

Neville jerked away sharply, orbs huge. "I feel a bit of deja vu coming on..."

Huffing out a breath, Luna tugged him by his lapels back into another kiss. She didn't want to talk about Ginny just now. Neville's mouth now blazed a trail to the hollow of her throat, and he pressed her into the eagle statue.

The customary riddle echoed through the blood thundering in Luna's ears, just enough for her to register it and answer.

"It is nothing, which is to say, everything... Oooooh, right there..."

The eagle statue yielded behind them, at the same moment that Luna yielded to Neville. Clasping each other close, the embracing couple more or less fell through the portrait hole, staggering back into the Common Room while snogging feverishly. The place was mercifully deserted at this hour.

Luna slammed back into the couch cushions, quaking as Neville settled on top of her. Sighing, she spread her legs, her mind wandering to how she only had the vaguest idea what was about to happen, and how when she'd pictured it, she had always imagined... Neville's lips claimed hers again and whatever Luna had imagined turned to mush. There was a rustle as Neville shoved the skirts of her periwinkle party dress up over her hips. Gripping a long and creamy thigh and hiking it up, Luna clamped her legs around Neville's middle. Her palm brushed something long and stiff, in the moment before he mounted her and they joined.

The fabric of the cushion shifted against Luna's bum as she and Neville began to move together, learning how to pleasure one another. As they had sex, the pair's moans became louder, until Luna had little doubt that the whole of her Common Room could hear and would know just what was happening: the mad girl from Ravenclaw was having her virginity taken. Neville's palm gripped the backrest, his fingers tangling into some loose strands of Luna's blonde curls as he bore down and thrust, plunging deep inside her molten heat. Luna's legs were twitching violently and she pushed her hipsupto meet him, slam for slam.

"Huhhhh... Uhhhhhhh... Oooooooh... Grey Lady preserve us, I - ahhhhh... Oh - Oh, Godric..." Luna's ramblings made Neville chuckle into the

soft curve of her neck and he rubbed against her, humped her faster.

"Fuck... Harder... faster..." Luna's pelvis bucked to accomodate Neville's wishes.

When her first orgasm arrived, it felt too soon. Luna's back arched and her toes clenched as her silver orbs popped and she let out a shout:

"RONALD!"

"HERMIONE!" Neville roared as he ejaculated hard inside his best mate, chasing her over the edge.

The pair of misfits lay there in post-coital sweat, panting, stunned with themselves at what they had just done. It took a good minute or two for it to dawn on Luna whose name Neville had cried.

Squirming above her, Neville shifted, rolling off his date and letting her up. Luna smoothed down her dress, feeling the blood and semen staining her legs. Her core felt angry and sore and raw, but she pushed aside the lingering discomfort in favor of focusing in on what she had just heard rather than what they had just done.

Neville wouldn't look at her. Well, to be fair, Luna reasoned she shouldn't be looking at him - after all, his name was not the one she'd called out.

"How... how long have you...?" She didn't finish.

Neville ran a hand over his face, batting away the beads of sweat clinging from their exertion. "You don't want to know."

"No? Try me."

Neville sighed. "I never told you or Gin, but... before I asked Ginny, I asked Hermione to the Yule Ball. I enchanted this rose from the greenhouses and offered it to her. She turned me down flat."

Luna smiled sympathetically. "Oh, love, I'm so sorry..."

"She said she'd already agreed to go with someone - Krum must have moved faster than me..."

"Neville: stop," Luna laid a hand on his arm. "If you love her, why don't you..."

"Oh, Luna, I can't." Neville buried his head in his arms. "She's in love with Ron. Even if she agreed to go out with me, or even if she'd gone with me tonight..."

Luna gasped. "She was the girl you were considering asking before me..."

Neville nodded glumly. "... it would have been a rebound, and we'd both know it. That wouldn't be fair to either of us."

Luna bit her lip. "Well, you're a damn finer catch than Cormac McLaggen, and we know she's not dating him."

"No. Just leading him on and distracting herself. It would be the same with me. If there ever was a chance to be with her, I'd want to be with her honestly." Becoming aware of how that sounded given his present company, Neville turned to his best mate and winced. "Luna, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take advantage of you, and I..."

Luna cut him off with a firm kiss on the mouth. She caught his eyes and held them. "Nev: you didn't do anything I didn't want. If I couldn't have the man I love be my first time, at least I did it with my most trusted friend." The best mates wrapped each other in a hug, Luna rubbing his back. "I love you."

Neville breathed deeply. "I know. I love you too, Lu." Drawing back, the pair laughed into each other's eyes and shared another chaste kiss on the lips.

There was a moment of if not awkward, then at least companionable silence.

"I think it's safe to say that we... don't tell Ginevra about this..." Luna prattled, biting her lip shyly.

Neville cracked a smirk. "Reckon she'd be right pissed I went further with you than I did with her?"

Luna burst into laughter. "No, not a chance!"