Brave { Neville Longbottom}

Chapter One Hundred Seventy Two

Neville sat with Kefira on the morning of when the third task was to take place and was talking to her about his Uncle Algie claiming he had a surprise for the boy when he got home. However, as he waited for her to respond he looked over to see Kefira staring off into the distance with a blank expression. He looked down to see that her fork was completely missing the bangers on her plate as she wasn't paying attention to what she was doing. 

Reach his hand out, Neville gently placed it over hers trying to distract her from her thoughts for a moment. At the touch of his fingers on her skin, the girl jumped and nearly stabbed him with the fork as her hand jerked. With a small screech, Neville ended up jumping himself and falling backward off the bench and onto the floor.

"Oops," Kefira said quickly standing up and walking behind Neville to help the boy to his feet. "Sorry about that, Nevs, you caught me off guard."

"No, it's okay," Neville said forcing a smile on his face to mask the pain he was in, especially as his back began to throb from where he had landed right on it. "I was...I was worried about you..you weren't responding."

"Oh, no I'm-" She remained still as the back of Neville's hand was pressed to her forehead as he attempted to check her temperature. She let out a giggle before she lifted both of her hands and grabbed his pulling it down. She didn't release his hand as she dragged him to sit back down with her. "Neville, I promise, I'm fine. I haven't been feeling cold or tired at all. You don't have to keep worrying about me. I already promised all of you that if I was feeling sick that I would go right to Madam Pomfrey or tell someone, alright?"

Neville nodded as he looked down to their hands and let out a small sigh.

"Well, is there something on your mind?" He asked. "Because I was talking to you for awhile and you were just staring off at...something or nothing."

"Sorry," she told him again. "It's just...over the last several nights I've been having all these strange dreams, ones that I can't even begin to explain because they don't really make sense to me. I think I've been hanging around Godric's portrait too much this year."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because every single dream I have he's in it and so...so is this wizard named Merlin, which I'm assuming has to be the famous Merlin, although, he's a lot younger and way better looking than the pictures I've seen of him. He was a good-looking wizard."

A look washed across Neville's face bringing the girl to laugh before she kissed his cheek. "I was only teasing you about the good-looking part," she said. "Anyways, they talk about all this stuff that I think is important by the time I wake up in the morning, I can't remember anything they've spoken about. I just remember what they look like and what they were wearing oddly enough."

"Maybe you can keep a dream journal," Neville suggested.

"A what?"

"You know, what Professor Trelawney said about recording our dreams. She said to keep a journal nearby when you sleep and when you dream you wake up afterward and write it down. So you can go over it in the morning."

"Man, I really need to listen to that woman more often," Kefira responded sheepishly.

"Maybe," Neville smiled to himself. "Or you can just ask me and I'll let you know."

"That sounds a lot better!"

The two were finishing up their breakfast when the owls came in with the mail, Loxie greeted Kefira dropping the Daily Prophet down in front of her.

"I didn't know you subscribed to the Daily Prophet," Nevill said as Kefira offered the bird a piece of toast.

"I didn't," Kefira chuckled. "Loxie's turned into quite the thief. I think she's upset when she doesn't have anything to bring in...so she's been bringing me all sorts of mail. "

She turned to Neville who had a look of shock on his face.

"Yeah, my owl is a bit of a jerk," she said. "But it comes in handy...hey, look at this..."

She down the paper for Neville to read.

HARRY POTTER

DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS

"Seems those three can't catch a break this year, can they?" Neville muttered as he pushed the paper away from him, not bothering to read any more of the rubbish.

Kefira handed the paper back to Loxie. "Here...destroy it as you please," she told the owl who quickly collected it and flew off.

She placed her hand on Neville's shoulder. "Hey, all we have to do is get through the last bit of exams, the third task, and they we get to enjoy the summer. Weren't you saying something about your Uncle Algie having a surprise for you?"

Neville grinned. "So you were listening somewhat?"

"Well, of course, at least I was trying to..but I'm just going to put these dreams aside, it's probably just my imagination getting the best of me. We all know how that story goes," she said. "So what do you think the surprise is?"

Sitting in Professor Binn's class for the History of Magic exam, Kefira was contemplating throwing herself out of the nearest window. She could hardly concentrate on the exam as it seemed twice as boring as the class itself which should have been deemed impossible. She was feeling quite jittery as she was excited for the third task. But she had to concentrate to get out of the exam as soon as she could. 

"How do you think the exam went?" Seamus questioned the group once they were all free and waiting around for the final task.

"Uh...I tripped up on the goblin and giant names. I think I switched a few," Kefira admitted. "You know it wouldn't kill them to have names like...Sam...or Timmy. "

"Timmy..." Dean snorted. "Like Timmy the Tall and Terrible?"

"Exactly," Kefira nodded. "Triple T's, triple the threat."

"So...many T words," Seamus gripped his head. "Make it stop."

"Twit," Kefira muttered.

"Hey-"

"Is for horses!" She caught Seamus off as she laughed and took hold of Neville's hand to escape the other boy's wrath.

Seamus stood with Dean in the corridor for an extra moment in silence before he glanced over at his best friend.

"I swear, I need this summer more than anyone else in this castle."

"You say that, Seamus, but you're always the first to send the letter out claiming you miss everyone."

"Do not!"