NOTES/WARNINGS: Crackfic! Inspired by LadyOfTheMasque's "Ten Random Facts About HP" thread on the Restricted Section discussion boards and Antosha's ten responses. #7 in particular.

Parvati let out a sound that was half-way between a moan and a scream, every muscle in her body pulled taut, then she collapsed onto the chest of the young man she'd been fucking.

"That was fantastic," she breathed. "Honestly, Neville, why don't you have a girlfriend?"

Neville wrapped his arms around her, trying to control his own breathing after the spectacular sex they'd just shared. "No one's that interested, I guess. Why'd you seduce me?"

Parvati laughed. "You make it sound like you put up a struggle! I did it because you're too sweet to be looked at as just a teddy bear. I feel sorry for blokes who are looked at as 'really nice guys' and never get laid as a result."

Pity-fucked, Neville thought, but with no bitter sentiment attached. If anything, he was genuinely amused.

That's the third one this week. JUST this week.

*

Neville wasn't really sure what was in the water at Hogwarts, but anything that accidentally turned him into the most desired male in the school couldn't be a bad thing. He was a sex-god, and through no fault of his own -- he hadn't started any of this, and was secretly growing suspicious that all the girls that had approached him had only done so because the girl before had said "You've got to do him! You'll never have sex better than that for the rest of your life!"

He hadn't developed an ego about it. Every day, Neville made sure to remind himself that this was all, quite possibly, just a fluke. He'd had a stroke of good luck, and eventually someone would think he were only mediocre and he'd be back to never getting any. He could accept that; to be honest, he wasn't sure he really liked being seduced by all these women.

All right, well, that was a lie. He rather enjoyed it. But it was never the women he wanted that were seducing him. They were beautiful, and they certainly seemed to know what they were doing, but they weren't really what he was looking for.

But he did like the sex, and so rather than developing an ego and quite possibly jinxing himself, he stuck to his true personality -- a little bumbling, but an honestly good person. He didn't seek out sex, letting sex instead seek out him.

Neville was beginning to suspect that sex had sex-god-seeking missiles, and they'd taken the form of well-meaning but also very hot and bothered young women. Like Lavender Brown, who found him after lunch while he was working on an Herbology project during his free time.

*

He had to stop doing this.

Lavender was snoozing next to him, tucked under his left arm and smiling peacefully in satisfaction. He was glad she'd fallen asleep, because if she hadn't then he might've felt the need to say aloud what he was thinking. He was thinking that sleeping with the women who kept offering themselves wasn't such a good thing, and Lavender would surely take offense if he said as much.

"Was I that bad?" she'd say, looking weepy and, as girls often look when they're getting upset, a little psychotic. "Do you hate me? Were you just using me?!"

The last bit would be said as if he'd propositioned her, not the other way around of course. He couldn't help it, really, that he'd lost control of his brain long enough to get naked and fuck like bunnies. By the time his senses had returned to 'normal space', he was already in the middle of the act and rather enjoying it.

That was the other part of the problem, though, wasn't it? Neville enjoyed it. He enjoyed it enough to say he needed to stop, but when his will power was put to the test... well... It was rather like potions class all over again. Failed. Repeatedly. No matter how hard he tried. The only real differences were a significant lack of volatile liquids and (thank God) no Snape involved.

All right, so that wasn't entirely fair. Sex was better than potions by about a million on whatever unit of measure it was that one used to measure such things. The feeling of having failed wasn't even the same. Failing at Potions was practically expected; failing himself, though, made him feel genuinely guilty.

Neville nudged Lavender awake. "Hey," he said. "I don't want to leave you like this, but I've got Herbology in ten minutes."

"Mm..." she sighed. Her arm curled around his midsection.

She didn't ask about my girlfriend status, Neville thought. Maybe she'll actually offer. She's not bad as person; she might be a pretty good girlfriend, too.

Lavender sighed again, opening her eyes to look at him.

"Can't you skip it?" she said, voice pleading a little. "I mean, it's just Herbology, after all."

Nevermind, thought Neville. I don't think it'd work out, after all. "Sorry, I can't. Assignment due."

He gave her a kiss on the cheek before he left her in Greenhouse #5 in the far back corner. Neville had to give her credit for location; he hadn't known about the "Bed of Roses" variation growing there, and it really had been a nice, romantic spot to have sex with someone.

*

Hannah Abbott was beginning to make an advance on him when Luna walked into the Library, interrupting the study-session in progress. Though it had been just Hannah, Neville and Hermione before, Hannah looked decidedly put out by another intrusion. Neville had (bumblingly, he supposed) invited Hermione along because he knew she'd make sure all the material they were covering would stick in their minds. At the time, it hadn't occurred to him that Hannah had suggested they study together for reasons outside the realm of the chaste and platonic; Hannah was one of those people he'd grown to think of as bordering on asexual. When he told her he'd invited Hermione to help, Hannah hadn't been able to hide her expression of disappointment quickly enough.

It had taken Neville a moment to think of a reason for her to be disappointed. Somehow, it still surprised him when a girl took an interest in getting into his trousers.

Luna had overheard him ask Hermione to help, and said that if it was all right she'd like to join them. Neville had invited her along almost too quickly, though Luna didn't seem to notice.

She was the young woman Neville would've much rather had propositioning him. Propositioning, then staying for a while. Not asking "Why don't you have a girlfriend?", but offering to be one. THE one, even. Luna might be a bit out of her mind, but part of that attracted him to her -- she was just so interesting.
If there was anyone in the school that made Neville want to slip up, to speak with more ego than he really had about his sexual prowess, it was Luna. What stopped him was an awareness that she probably wouldn't care.

"That's lovely," he could imagine her saying. "I've heard wonderful things about sex. Some not-so-wonderful things, too, but not all bad. Is it any fun?..."

Knowing Luna, she might completely miss the point of him bringing it up in the first place. Then what he might've hoped looked like an admirable worldly quality would be trivialized, and he'd either have gotten no nearer to getting her attention or possibly stopped any chance from ever getting it at all.

Their study session was spent with Hannah trying to get Neville's attention and mostly getting Hermione's, while Neville talked with Luna and discovered that, between the two of them, they could remember the entire list of directions for one of the most complicated potions recipes they'd learned all year. Every time he had to remember what came next, he remembered whatever Luna had been saying or doing when they'd discussed it. Mostly, though, he just remembered Luna.

He supposed it was, to some people, a little odd to associate the person you like-very-much with a potion to heal minor bone fractures.

Hannah probably wanted to speak to him (or use 'speaking' as a pretense) after their study session was over, but Neville left with Luna, wanting to talk with her a little more. Or just be near her, at least, since they didn't really talk much. She smelled a little like spiced pumpkin, and this was a smell Neville had recently decided he liked.

"You know," she said all of a sudden, "I'm not really sure I want to have sex ever."

Neville blinked in surprise. "What made you think of that?"

"Parvati was talking about you last night. She said you're quite good in bed, and seeing you reminded me she'd said that. And so did Cho, actually -- she'd said the same as Parvati. Do you like sex?"

Neville was aware that Luna was a strange sort of girl, but this didn't mean she wasn't also the sort to ask a question there is no right answer to. He "Hmm"ed in contemplation, then walked alongside her quietly for almost a full minute, thinking about how best to answer her without completely destroying any chance of dating her.

Because of who he was as a person, he also considered how to answer without lying to her as well.

"I do like sex," he started. "But I don't love it, or feel like I need it. I think it would make more sense to have sex with someone you really care about instead of someone who you've heard is good in bed. Or even with someone who just wants to find out how good you really are."

Luna considered this response long enough to make Neville think she had started thinking about something else, but then she asked him, "What if the person you really care about doesn't want to have sex?"

Neville shrugged. "Then you don't have sex with them, I suppose. If you care about them, then it's not the sex you're interested in anyway."

They both fell silent, shoes hitting the stone floor and the swish of their robes the only sound around them. They'd reached a part of the castle Neville wasn't as familiar with; he hadn't done much exploring of the ancient structure, so he got lost more easily than some of his friends.

"Where are you going to?" he finally asked. He'd been following her, intending to walk her to her next destination under the impression that she was going to the Ravenclaw dormitory.

"I don't know. I'm just wandering, I suppose; I wanted to talk with you some more."

Neville felt his heart jump. "Really?"

"Yes. Do you have a crush on me?"

Neville blushed and tripped over his own feet, startled by her directness and the nature of the question.

"Yeah." He wished he could've said "Yes!", which would have sounded so much more straightforward and confident. "Yeah" was what you said when you were sheepish about something, like getting caught sneaking a late night snack or ignoring your chores; it wasn't how you admitted to someone that you like-like them.

So, after his sheepish "yeah", Neville added, "I do. I have a crush on you." He tried to sound confident.

"I thought so."

There was a long pause, and though Luna's mind seemed to have wandered elsewhere, Neville felt stuck in the same spot she'd left him in.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked her.

"What?"

"That I have a crush on you."

She shook her head, though she looked more like she was paying attention to the tapestries and paintings lining the walls. "Not at all. I rather like you, too."

Neville beamed. All the ego-stroking of being a sex-god was nothing compared to the way this felt. And as he thought of the conversation they'd just had about sex, and their mutual confessions of more-than-friends interest, everything fell into context.

"Luna," he began, "Would you be my girlfriend?"

It sounded corny. Saying it like that out loud sounded cheesy and old-fashioned, and for a moment he felt like he may as well have asked her to 'go steady' or hold hands or something.

Luna smiled at him, and Neville was almost certain that she looked more grounded and aware of her surroundings for a few moments than he'd ever seen her.

"I'd like that," she said, "But if you don't mind, I'd like to wait on sex for a while. Maybe until we're twenty-five."

"That's fine!" Neville said, and that time he knew he sounded rushed and giddy. His excitement probably wasn't lost on her, but she didn't look any more or less affected than if he'd said it in a cool, casual manner. "I don't need sex. I can wait. I could give it up, even."

Luna didn't say anything, but she smiled and took his hand, and Neville could've sworn she blushed faintly at his words. He'd never have thought that promises of eternal chastity would be the sort of thing that would make a girl swoon, but apparently it worked.

They held hands all the way back to the Great Hall, where Neville knew everyone in school would see them. Holding hands. In public.

There was no greater way in existence to announce you were dating someone, short of standing on the table and jubilating loudly for all and sundry to hear. That was tempting, actually, but Neville decided on the subtle route.

*

"Neville, are you really going out with Loony Lovegood?" Parvati whined. She'd cornered him on the way up to the Gryffindor tower, and she didn't look happy.

She'd also brought company.

"Hannah Abbott took one look at you two holding hands and ran crying from the Great Hall," Cho informed him, also looking a bit pouty.

"I really am going out with Luna," Neville stated, emphasising the correct pronunciation of her name. "And I'm sorry that Hannah is upset about it, but I really do like Luna."

Parvati and Cho both looked strangely insulted by this, as if they'd actually offered and he'd turned them both down.

"But she's so weird!" Parvati cried. "Why would you want to be with her?!"

"I bet she's really kinky, too," suggested Cho. "If that's what you're into, Neville, you could just ask and--"

As Cho spoke, she and Parvati had gotten uncomfortably closer to him, and Neville found himself trying to back away into a wall.

"She's not into sex!" he said immediately, and both girls froze where they were and looked confused.

"Then... why are you dating her?" Cho asked. "I mean, if she's not giving it up, why are you interested?"

Neville gave her a look of mild irritation. "Because I like her. As a person." When did it become a crime to want to be with someone you like for their human characteristics instead of their skill in bed?

It occurred to him that, maybe, this was what happened to women who dated men that only wanted them for their bodies and sexual prowess. He felt a momentarily overwhelming sense of guilt in that moment for not having seen it before -- and thus for not helping to correct the problem.

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry, but I really do like Luna and I don't care if it means I never have sex again. I want to be with her."

Then he pushed past them and headed back up to his dormitory.

It wasn't until he was flat on his back, staring at the canopy over his bed, that he realized he'd done it.

He, Neville Longbottom, Hogwarts' resident sex-god, had turned down sex.

It's because of Luna, he thought. Because of her, I was able to say no. She's my reason to NOT have sex every time I'm propositioned.

He smiled to himself, and imagined that this was a lot like how it felt to not fail Potions.