"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
"Er," said Neville. He hadn't counted on this. Whatever it had been that he'd thought he'd encounter trying to get into the Ravenclaw common room, this really wasn't it. He'd been hoping for a password and someone to come along and give it to him, and now that he saw the actual situation, he had to acknowledge that even if someone did come along, it wouldn't be in his best interests to endure the smirk directed at him for not being able to answer a simple question.
"Well?" the eagle-shaped door knocker said. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" The second time the question was posed, the door knocker was quite impatient.
"I don't really…"
"Well, you'd best be getting on, then, if you haven't got an answer."
"Oh! Yes. Of course." He turned glumly from the door and found that he was face-to-face with the very person he had been coming up to this tower to see: Luna Lovegood.
"Oh, hello, Neville," she said, gazing at him in such a way that he felt both overlooked and invaded. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, though—quite the contrary, actually.
"Hello." He swallowed and fidgeted.
"Trouble getting into the tower?"
"Well, sort of—" The door knocker clucked behind them. "I mean yes," he said quickly. "I'm hopeless at this sort of thing, you know."
"Are you just going to keep standing there?" the knocker asked, exasperated.
"Sorry!"
"It's all right, Neville," Luna said. "What's the question?"
"What is the sound of one hand clapping," the knocker said wearily.
"I'd imagine it would be the same sound one would make trying to think of the answer to that age-old question."
The eagle eyed her suspiciously, as if trying to determine whether Luna was giving her cheek, then swung open to allow them entrance.
The first thing Neville noticed upon walking through the door was that it looked as if someone's trunk had exploded in the common room. "What happened?"
"Oh, this?" Luna swept the room with her eyes, not looking as if she'd noticed anything peculiar. "I'm just collecting all my stuff. End of the year, you know… That's when it all finds its way back. The girls just bring it to me in the dormitories, but since the boys can't get up there, you know… I just find it easier to pack down here."
"Ah," Neville said. He hesitated. "Can I… Can I help you look for it?"
"No, really, it's never a problem. I always get everything back."
"Yeah, but we're leaving tomorrow morning, and it's pretty late already…"
"Well, I can't imagine why anyone would want to keep my stuff, so I always get it back, but…" She looked at a point just beyond Neville's head. "If you want to help, I'd appreciate it."
"Okay, well, what are you missing?"
"Not much, really… a pair of shoes, a hairbrush, toothpaste, trousers… socks, although I may have just lost those… I'm almost done, actually."
"Oh."
Luna blinked at him. "Hm? Are you going to help me look? You could go into the boys' dormitories and see if any of them have anything."
"How do you even keep track of the things you have in the common room?" Neville asked, looking incredulously at the haphazard clutter on every surface of the common room, including the floor. "Anyone could take something, and it's not even in piles or trunks or bags…"
"I can keep track of it," Luna said, shrugging slightly.
"Oh." Neville shifted to the left. "Do you want me to put some of it in piles? It would make it easier to pack."
"That would be…" Luna suddenly looked perplexed at something behind where Neville had just been standing.
Neville looked warily at the table her eyes rested upon.
"Have you seen my Spectroscopes? They were just on that table there…"
"No, I—I haven't. Someone must have decided something of yours was worth taking." He chanced a grin.
Luna looked at him whimsically and then smiled back. "Yes, someone must have… I really did like those, though. I should like to have them back, provided the thief doesn't need them too badly."
"I'm sure he—or she—will return them. They're not so useful to wear all the time, really. They give you an odd look on the world."
"Yes, although an odd look on the world could give you an answer if you really needed one. …However, if the question is where the Spectroscopes are hidden, then I don't think they would help much in the answering process."
This was just a taste, thought Neville, of the singular workings of Luna Lovegood's brain. He admired her for it, but it still caught him off-guard whenever she came up with conclusions reached from the same erratic thought process he had just witnessed.
He grinned to himself at how lovely he found her because of this strange aspect and set to organizing the debris strewn over the furniture, chatting amiably with Luna all throughout.
A clock was heard chiming eleven o'clock from nearby the westward-looking windows. Luna and Neville stopped their conversation to count the chimes.
"It's really very late," said Luna. She paused. "I still don't have my Spectroscopes."
"You have everything else, though?"
"Yes. The shoes Ginny said Pansy Parkinson had taken were the last thing."
Neville shifted uncomfortably.
"I would like to go to bed now… not that you aren't good company, Neville, but I really am tired, and as soon as I have my Spectroscopes, I could go up to sleep. I'll have to do some last-minute packing in the morning… pajamas and things—you know—so I'd best be going to bed before long."
"Oh. Well, no, that's okay. I understand. I mean, it is late."
"Yes. …It is." She took a few steps closer to Neville, a look of amused curiosity on her face.
"That's right," Neville said somewhat redundantly. "It is."
Luna gave a small, affectionate laugh and walked slowly but evenly towards Neville, kissing him softly at the corner of his mouth.
Neville started and blushed, but he knew enough not to refuse opportunities once presented to him, and he put his hand behind her neck and kissed her back, this time directly on the mouth. When they pulled away, Luna held the Spectroscopes in her left hand.
"They were in your back trousers pocket," she said, glancing at them. "I'll bet you never thought to check there."
Neville bit his lip.
When again Luna spoke, it wasn't accusatory. Rather, it was happy, amused—and knowing. "You know, Neville… It's curious how we might never have had time to do this," she said, kissing him lightly on the nose, "if these had never gotten put in your back pocket."