Disclaimer: JK Rowling thought them up. And maybe she'll even put them together. Until then, though, this is all I have.

He can get to know her, maybe, but he isn't sure he wants to. She's pretty and he's not quite goodlooking, on the chubby side, and her smile is confidant and lights up the room while his is shy. She isn't the best student but she manages and she excells in Divination. He isn't the best student, not at all, but he holds on tight somehow, and he's quite alright in Herbology. She's a terrific dancer while he isn't, in fact, he stepped all over Ginny's toes at the Yule Ball and how he cringes to remember it and she smiles because she went and it was fun, though maybe not the Neville-stepping-on-her-toes part.

So there it is, what he knows. Her name is Parvati Patil and she has a favorite subject (Divination), and she has a twin sister (Padma) and a best friend (Lavender) and she likes to dance. And she's pretty, but he can't think about that too much because he'll blush, and besides, everybody knows. Pretty Parvati. Beautiful.

There is much more of what he doesn't know. What she dreams of at night. And how her hair would feel between his fingers. And if she cries quietly or not. He doesn't know what she wants to be or what she was, only that he wants, wants them to be and wants to know her and wants her to know him.

And he can know her, maybe, if he talks to her and maybe he'd even make her laugh like he did once last year. And not laugh at him but with him, at a joke he told, and oh what a great feeling that was. And he can tell her things and hope she doesn't laugh and wait for her to tell him... and maybe she will. But. But what if. What if she does and it's painful. And it's not really her at all. The her he knows now.

Or what if it turns out she's even more wonderful than he knows she is? So smart and so nice and so pretty and so so so so perfect... and he'll get to know her and realize how that's true and how she will never love him and oh how it will hurt, to realize it's reality, when right now he can dream that maybe, yes, just maybe, she can one day fall for him.

So he does.