Brave { Neville Longbottom}

Chapter One Hundred Fifty Three

On early Christmas morning, Kefira awoke expecting to find her dorm mates all in bed, sleeping until the late morning, but the girl was incredibly wrong. Instead, she awoke to chaos in the girl's dorms, as girls were scrambling in and out of rooms. Some were asking to borrow accessories to go with their dress robes, while others were complaining about what they wanted to do with their hair. Kefira sat up in her bed, still trying to wake up fully, and watched as the Gryffindor Tower became a madhouse.

"Aren't you going to get out of bed, Kefi?" 

She glanced over to see Parvati walking in, a confused look on her face to still see the girl in bed.

"I'm not sure I want to, it's like a stampede around here, I don't want to get trampled," Kefira answered her.

"Well you can't wait until the last minute to get ready, Kefi," she informed her. The girl looked over at the clock resting on the nightstand by her bed and then turned her attention back to the Patil twin. 'It's eight-thirty in the morning. The ball doesn't start until this evening." 

"Exactly," Parvati nodded her head before leaving the room.

Kefira sat on her bed for a few minutes longer before she pushed herself to the side and placed her feet on the floor. She had no plans of getting in the way of all the crazed girls who were focusing on getting ready hours before they needed to. It was a battle to get through them just to brush her teeth, she was not going to hang around longer than she needed to. Instead, she slipped down the stairs, finding the common room mostly abandoned.

However, she did find herself in good company as she found Trevor, resting by the fire, enjoying the heat.

"You're up awfully early, Trevor. Did the scary girls wake you?" She chuckled walking over and sitting beside the toad. "I know they definitely scare me. You should have seen one of the facemasks on one of the girl's up there...scarier than any mask I've seen before."

Trevor let out a croak, bringing Kefira to nod. "That's exactly what I thought when I saw it."

Neville didn't plan on sleeping in on Christmas morning, but he certainly didn't regret it either. When he finally did wake up, he found presents at the foot of his bed from his grandmother and Uncle Algie. He smiled to himself as he climbed out of bed to go brush his teeth and once he returned, he went to go open one of the presents. However, his mind trailed to the whereabouts of his toad as Trevor had spent the night in the dorm sleeping at the bottom of his bed the night before because he was cold. He pushed himself up and checked under all the beds in the room before he decided to check the common room. 

He had only traveled down several steps when he heard the familiar sound of laughter that belonged to Kefira. He was glad to know that she was awake as he ran back up the stairs to grab her present. He had worked incredibly hard on it and he hoped that she would like it as he headed back downstairs.

As he entered the common room, he found Kefira and Trevor, settled by the fire. He called out a Christmas greeting, bringing the girl to look over in his direction with a bright smile.

"Morning, Nevs!" She said jumping to her feet. "Geseënde Kersfees!"

Neville came to a halt, holding the present behind his back and staring at her. "What?"

"Oh," Kefira snorted. "It's how Uncle Bandile says Merry Christmas. Sorry."

"No, no need to be sorry," Neville smiled. "Say it again."

"Geseënde Kersfees!"

"Eh...one more time?"

Kefira laughed before saying it a bit slower for him and in a calmer tone. "Geseënde Kersfees."

"Ah," Neville said reviewing it over in his mind several times. "Well, Geseënde Kersfees to you!"

He held out the present to her, nearly striking her in the face.

"Sorry!" He blurted out. "I didn't mea-"

"Relax, Nevs," Kefira said taking the package from his hands gently. "No harm done. You didn't actually hit me."

"But I almost did."

"Keyword: almost. It's fine."

He opened his mouth to respond, but only found himself apologizing again. Kefira smiled before taking his hand and leading him to sit down beside her on the sofa. He watched as she moved around the present in her hands before giving him a curious look.

"What did you get me?" She questioned.

"You can open it," he encouraged her.

"Well, don't mind if I do," She said before tearing off the wrapping. Trevor hopped into Neville's lap, apparently interested in the gift as well.

"Trevor, you already know what it is," Neville said to him. "You were there when I wrapped it."

Trevor seemingly ignored him as Kefira pulled the final pieces of wrapping paper off and held up a book. A wide grin appeared on the girl's face as she flipped it over to the front to get a look at the cover.

"Neville, you didn't..." She began.

The boy turned red with the combination of the warmth of the fire and the way she looked at him in surprise.

"Well, I tried," he told her simply.

As Kefira looked through the book, she looked at all the handwritten notes and drawings of different plants that Neville had created.

"Did you draw all these?" She asked.

"Most of them," he answered, " but Dean helped me with drawing the ones with more details. And Professor Sprout definitely helped me with the information."

Inside the book, it was like an advanced Herbology book mixed with all sorts of descriptions that would aid potion developing. There were facts and bits of information that one couldn't simply find in a textbook, but she now had at her fingertips.

"It must have taken you ages to do all this," she said with her fingers trailing over one of the familiar plants on the page.

"It wasn't a problem, though, I wanted to do this. I figured it might help you...or rather us when we start trying to develop again. That's if you want to keep working on different stuff besides the serum. It's completely up to you-"

"Of course I do! And this is perfect!"

"I left some blank spaces so you could add your own notes too, see?" He leaned forward and pointed out several spots on some of the pages. "You know way more about potions than I do, so I left it open-"

His breath caught in his throat as Kefira cut him off with a kiss on the cheek. He immediately turned to face her as he felt the rest of his body turning into mush. But she surprised him again with a gentle kiss on the lips.

"Geseënde Kersfees, Neville," she whispered to him before standing up from the sofa with her book in hand. She left in the direction of the girl's dorm before Neville finally regained himself to call after her.

"Wh-where are you going?"

"Well, I have to get ready for the ball, Neville," she said with a teasing smile as she started up the stairs. "See you there."

The boy sat on the sofa for a few moments after Kefira disappeared before Trevor let out a loud croak.

"You can say that again, Trevor."