AMORTENTIA // Luke Patterson *COMPLETED*

•Chapter 66•

"Professor Longbottom." I say with a smile.

"Dani, you've been out of school for a few months, there's no need to call me that, just Neville will do."

"Sure thing, just Neville." I tease him. He pulls me into a quick hug before making his way into the house, revealing his wife, Hannah, who I also hug and let inside. Finally I face the one person that everyone (excluding myself) has been so excited about.

"Hey Luke." I smile, and although the doorway made his face darker, and harder to see, I still saw the slight blush crawl into his cheeks.

"Hey Dani, good to see you again."

I could tell that he wasn't gonna make a move, so I pull him in by his shoulders and give him a long awaited hug.

Once we let go, he makes his way to the lounge, while I close the door.

As I start walking toward the lounge, grandma stops me, and tells me that we can have a game of quidditch, since the dinner won't be ready anytime soon. I give her a nod, as I continue my route to where everyone was sitting.

"Okay, so, grandma says dinner won't be ready anytime soon, so is anyone up for a friendly game of quidditch?" I watch as everyone's faces slowly light up at the idea of a friendly competition.

Everyone speaks amongst themselves, trying to decide on who's teams they want to be on.

"Not starting a game of quidditch without your favorite seeker, are you?" Dads voice suddenly appears behind me. I turn around and smile at him, seeing mum standing behind him.

"Their favorite seeker is already here, Dani is right there." Teddy appears from behind them, sassing dad as he walks toward me. "Lovely to see you again."

He kisses my cheek and hugs me, before making his way toward Victoire - planting a solid kiss on her lips, making Bill slap his head, over the extensive PDA with his daughter.

"Anyway, not everyone will be able to play, so if you're not wanting to play, you can be a spectator. Team captains are Teddy and James. Let's go play."

I have been told that I've gotten quite bossy over the last few months, but you have to be bossy when dealing with animals that are a lot bigger then you are.

~~

At the beginning of sorting everyone into teams, it was chaos. Eventually we used magic to pick the teams, so nobody would think that it was rigged if the team captains picked.

Of course I somehow ended up on teddy's team with Luke - who was a surprisingly good beater. We also ended up winning the match, making a lot of people upset over the fact that James was fueling their anger over his loss, but in the end, he was just being a man child.

"Dinners ready!" Grandma called out the back window, that faced the garden that we were all sitting in after the match.

Everyone got up and started making their way toward the house, but before I could get more the three feet away from where I had been sitting, an arm held me back. Of course when I looked at the owner of the arm, it was Luke.

He looked scared but confident, which was a strange combination, especially for him.

"Sorry. I just wanted to talk to you, since I haven't seen you in a while." He explains.

"Oh, well what did you wanna talk about?"

"The kiss." He says bluntly.

"What kiss?"

"On the last day at Hogwarts, you kissed me."

"Ohhh, I won't lie, I almost forgot about that."

"So it meant nothing to you?"

I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. Did he think that it actually meant something? I don't mean to be rude, but I did it because I was so happy with being gifted with Porsin, that I acted out of impulse.

"I was just really happy at the time, it wasn't meant to be a real kiss, more of a spur of the moment kinda thing, Luke"

He looks down at the ground, obviously embarrassed over the fact that he thought the kiss was more then friendly.

"Do you ever wonder, why I started flirting with you, all of a sudden?" He says, randomly.

"Not really, I just thought it was something you do with all your friends."

"I did it, because in fourth year, a few days before the thing with Julie happened, we learned about Amortentia in potions. Not a lot of people got to smell it, but I was one of the, so called, 'lucky' people to get a chance to smell it. I was confused for a while, because what I smelled in the cauldron, was a smell that I'd never smelled before - or so I thought. I was sitting with Alex and Reggie at dinner, and you walked past us, and the smell came to me again, I thought it was only a coincidence. But, as creepy as it sounds, whenever I was around you, that was all I could smell. It's why I chose to use Amortentia on you, I was hoping that you would realize that we were giving it to you, and you would smell me, and it would click in your mind that we were meant to be together, but it didn't work that way. Not a day goes by that I don't regret using that potion on you or any of the others that we used. I used to think that maybe because I used it on you, it made you incapable of loving me, but after you saved me, and helped me become really human again, I knew it was just because I was a horrible person, and I've come to terms with that, well I thought I did, until that kiss. The kiss made me question everything I thought I knew about myself, and while you were away, training and helping those dragons, I was here, waiting for the day that you would come back, and I could tell you all the things that I had wanted to, from the day that I met you. I know you'll never feel the same, but I just needed to get it out."

I didn't know how to react.

Everything that he's done - while it is horrible - I can see that he was only searching for a commitment or a person who would care for him, something that he never got when he was growing up. Everything he did, isn't excusable, but maybe somehow we could get past this.

That is what I would say if I didn't have a brain.

Everything he's done, has ruined my life, no matter how hard I try and prove myself to my family and friends, I know they'll always doubt me. I know that months after grandma adopted Reggie, he was the one replacing me in everyone's lives - because to them, he was the angel of the family, and I was the stained rag that nobody trusted or wanted to trust.

Even after Alex and Nick started dating, Alex slowly started filling my place in my friend group. It became a thing that Alex, Flynn and Nick would always hang out, and they wouldn't send me a second thought. I was left on my own in so many situations, that I felt as helpless and lonely as I did in 4th year.

Thats why I left to go to Romania - where I could be with someone who actually liked and trusted me. Charlie was the only person who treated me the same as he did before. Charlie was the only person who actually believed that I was a good person, and he was the only one who stood me that the entire time - in fourth year. Nothing was ever the same after what Luke did. My life was changed because of him.

Yet, something inside of me, can't help but feel something for him. I know that all my hate is directed to him, he's the reason for all my problems - over the last few years, and yet I can't help but love him. The pity I feel for him, is one of the main things that I realized first. He's had a hard life, so when he did that to me, at the time he felt no remorse, because he grew up thinking that ruining people - using them for your own personal gain - was normal.

I must've been standing in silence for too long, because soon enough, Luke turned around to walk toward the house.

I didn't think much about my decision, but I knew that grabbing him by the arm, spinning him around and kissing him with all the passion that I could muster, was the right decision.

From the moment that, that happened, I knew life would get better, and eventually things would get better between us, so much so, that someday we might actually be happy together.