"Neville...!" His grandmother's voice rang through the house. "You've got a visitor."
Neville frowned. No-one ever visited him over the summer. Or any other time, for that matter. He closed his book and got up. As he made his way downstairs, he tried to think of who it could be, but as he arrived at the front door, he still had no idea.

"Hello, Neville!" Luna said cheerily when he opened the door. "Are you having a nice summer, despite all the rain and your grandmother looking a little grumpy?"

Neville just stared at her for a moment. "Yes, I... uhm..." He shook his head, trying to clear it. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I'm just going around to find company. The Weasleys live closest, but they weren't home. It gets a bit lonely with my father being away... Could I stay over for the rest of the month?"

"I... Uhm... What?" Neville always felt uncomfortable with Luna's directness. "I suppose... Wait! Your father's away?"

She nodded. "He's off on an expedition. I would have loved to go with him, but he won't be back before September. To be honest, he doesn't know when he'll get back, but I'm sure it'll be before June, next year. Promised to send me an owl every day, but still, the house is too big without him."

Neville took a moment to absorb this. "I... I will have to ask gran," he said, finally.

"Of course," Luna said happily. "It's really great you'll even consider it."

Neville blushed. "Of course I will. You're my... friend..."

Luna grinned widely. "Thank you, Neville! I consider you my friend, too."

"You better come on in," he muttered. "Would you like some tea while I talk to gran?"

"Yes, thank you! Do you have plimpy tea?" she asked.

"Excuse me. Do I have what?" Neville chuckled, realising that he had really missed Luna.

"Ah. I'll take that as a no." She smiled. "Which tea do you have?"

"Uhm... Darjeeling. Hibiscus..." Neville considered. "Honestly, I'm not sure. But we can go and have a look."

Luna nodded. "I'm excited to see more of your grandmother. She doesn't look all that much like what I heard of your lesson from Professor Lupin."

Neville blushed. "Well... That was just her robe and hat. She's not like him, at all."

"Fortunately," Luna nodded.

Neville led her to the kitchen. As he put on the kettle, he indicated a cupboard. "Gran keeps the teas in there. You can have a look. Just don't touch the red jar. That's the herbs for the potion she makes to soothe her hip."

"Okay. She should use humpidump ointment for that, though." Luna said absently, directing her attention to the teas.

Neville chuckled. "You can tell her that. I... I'll go talk to her now."

"That's alright. I'll make the tea." Luna made a small distracted wave at him.

"Yes... Uhm... Good..." Neville stood for a moment, shuffling his feet, then hurried off to find his grandmother.

"Hello again, Mrs. Longbottom," Luna said as she brought the teacups into the next room. "I've made you one, too."

"Thank you, girl," the old woman said. "My grandson," she glanced at Neville, who was sitting on a wooden stool next to her arm chair, "tells me you are looking for a place to stay over the summer."

"Well, I have a place, but no company," Luna shrugged.

Neville's grandmother nodded. "So which would you prefer? To stay here or to bring Neville to your place?"

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that option," Luna said. "It would be good to be able to look after the garden. But surely you want to keep Neville close to you?"

She shrugged. "Neville has spent most of his life under my eye. And in all of that time, no friend has ever come to call. It will be good for the boy, to be in the company of someone his own age."

"What do you think, Neville?" Luna asked.

Neville looked up, surprised to be asked. "Well, uhm... If gran thinks it best, I..." He let out a weak laugh and smiled. "I mean, I'd love to."

Luna smiled widely. "Great, so you're coming. Shall I help you pack?"

"No." He grinned a bit sheepishly. "I can manage."
"What he means," his grandmother supplied, "is that his room is not fit for company. A disaster area, I believe it's called."
Neville groaned. "Gran..."

Luna giggled. "I really wouldn't mind helping. But if you don't want me to, I'll just have a nice chat with your gran while I wait."

...

"Is it far?" Neville asked, shifting his heavy backpack as they made it down the side of another grassy slope.

"Just a good walk," Luna said cheerily. "According to your grandmother, you could use some fresh air. And I agree. Surplus oxygen keeps the wrackspurts away from your brain."

Neville giggled. "Of course it does."

Luna looked at him with wide eyes. "It does! I know you don't believe me, but there was a whole article on them in the Quibbler last month."

"Oh no. I do believe you. I do," Neville said, hurriedly. "I... I just didn't read that issue." He blushed.

"Oh, that's quite alright. I'm sure you can find some copies around our house."

"Yes. Of course," Neville groaned as they were climbing a particularly steep hill. He gasped as they reached the crest. "Is that your... house?"

"Oh yes," Luna smiled. "It's lovely, isn't it? I love our dirigible plums."

"It's amazing," Neville said, staring in awe at the odd building.

"Thank you! I'm so glad you think so," Luna said happily. "Let's go down there, so I can show you the garden."

Neville nodded eagerly. Even from this distance, he believed he had seen at least a handful of species of plants that Professor Sprout had termed 'extremely rare' or even 'extinct'.

"Shall I carry your backpack?" Luna proposed. "Then you can look around."

"Oh, no." Neville immediately straightened up and tried not to look tired. "It's fine. It's no problem. It's not really that heavy..."

"Which is why it shouldn't be a problem for me to carry it," Luna smiled.

Neville sighed, smiling. "Okay," he admitted. "It is kind of heavy. And I don't want you carrying my things. I mean..." He giggled nervously. "You shouldn't... I can do it myself."

"Okay, if you like to. I don't want to make you feel... burdened with the knowledge I'm carrying it," she said.

"Uhm..." Neville turned the words over in his mind. "Thank you?"

"You're welcome," Luna said dreamily, starting to walk down the hill.

Neville followed, stumbling a little as he tried to see everything at once. Everything but where he was putting his feet. Suddenly he stepped into a small hole in the ground and fell, landing face down in the tall grass.

Luna turned and giggled. "Are you sure you don't want me to help?" she asked, reaching out her hand to help him up.

"Can you help me look where I'm going?" he asked, grinning, as he took her hand.

"Sure," she said. "You should have a Fallapatorius to help you."

"Right." He laughed. "I'd probably lose it though."

"It'd find you," she nodded seriously.

"Then maybe I should get one. Especially if it could also find all the other stuff I lose."

Luna smiled. "For now I'll help you. Things never really disappear, you know."

"If I lose something and never find it again, it might as well have disappeared."

"Oh, I'm sure it will all find a way to come back to you some day."

Neville shook his head. "Not to me. Things just stay... lost." He bit his lip and looked around. "You're so lucky to live out here. No nosy neighbours or anything."

"No. No neighbours at all." Luna frowned. "It's never bothered me, you know. I thought it would be fine when my father was gone and that there would be enough interesting things to discover. And yet it was different."

He nodded. "It got lonely?"

"Yes," she mused. "You'd think I'm used to that, but it's different at home. I miss him. But of course I'm glad he can go and see such wonderful things! He'll have so much to tell when he gets home." She smiled.

"You feel lonely here because you're usually not alone here," Neville said. "I felt the same when gran was gone for a week last year. It's different at school. We're used to being... left out."

Luna nodded. "People think you are a little bit silly, but you're really wise, you know."

He blushed and shrugged. "I have a lot of time to think," he muttered.

"Well, you won't get bored here, I promise," Luna said. "Have you ever fished for plimpies before?"

Neville shook his head. "I've never fished for anything. Except the keys I once dropped down the drain."

Luna giggled. "You'll find this a more pleasant experience."

"Oh, it was kind of fun. Uncle Algie let me use a Muggle magnet he had once found. At least I think he'd found it..."

Luna frowned for a moment. "Do you actually think he had stolen it?" she asked then, sounding interested.

"I wouldn't put it past him. He's always been a little... vague... on the whole notion of property and ownership."

"Well, if it's only a magnet, I'm sure the Muggle wouldn't mind if he knew it was used for something useful and for further studying," Luna said cheerily.

"I suppose that depends on what the Muggle needed it for in the first place," Neville said, smiling.

"Here we are," Luna said, opening the door for him. "You can just dump your bag, if you want, unless you want me to show you your room first."

"No rush," Neville said as he put down his bag. "Let's go fishing."

Luna grinned and went to get her equipment.

...

It turned out that Neville had a knack for fishing and he caught even more gulping plimpies than Luna. She told him that it meant he really had a lot of talent, since the plimpies would notice if someone had been in contact with a gurdyroot over the last year and usually stayed away from them.

The plants in the garden were even more interesting to Neville. They spent long days looking for animals and plants he had never heard of and wasn't entirely sure existed, but the long walks in the area around Luna's house were always great, so it didn't matter much.

It was a great holiday and for the first time, Neville had the feeling that he really had a close friend of his own age. The plimpy soup had been horrible, but apart from that, Luna was a good cook.

Then one evening, Luna made a small fire in the garden. They had been eating ice mice, but now they were just lazily looking into the fire, contently leaning against a couple of trees.

"Flames always remind me of blast-ended skrewts now," she said dreamily. "I liked them."

Neville looked up. "Huh?"

"The skrewts we had to take care of for Hagrid? They were interesting."

Neville stared at her blankly. "Oh?" Then he caught up. "Yes, very... interesting."

"Oh, you think so too?" she asked happily. "Everyone else hated them."

Neville nodded. "Yeah... Sure..."

Luna smiled. "Are you sleepy? You seem a little absent."

"What... Oh, no..." Neville blushed and grinned sheepishly. "No... I was just thinking."

"Do you want to share your thoughts?" she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. "I... I can trust you, right?" he asked. "You won't tell anyone?"

"Of course I won't tell anyone. You're my friend," Luna said.

"I..." He closed his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was so small it was barely a whisper. "I was thinking that this is how things could have been..."

"When?" Luna asked softly.

"If things had been different," he whispered. "If my sister had been born."

Luna gave him a sympathetic look. "What happened?"

"She would have been your age," he muttered. "More or less. But my parents were... injured." He looked up at her, suddenly scared. "You can never tell anyone. I'm not supposed to know."

"I won't tell. I promise," Luna said seriously. "What happened to your parents?"

Neville shrugged. "Death eaters," he said simply.

"I'm so sorry," Luna said. "Are they still alive?"

"In a way. But... But my sister died... No-one even knew about her, except my parents. But after... afterwards... the healer who had cared for them told gran. Told her that it would have been a girl."

Luna got up to walk towards him, crouched next to him and hugged him. "I'm so sorry. At least my mother died doing what she loved. What happened to your family is so horrible."

Neville sat frozen for a moment. Then he sniffed and suddenly flung his arms around her.

She rocked him gently. "I'd have liked to have a big brother, you know. To take on adventures and expeditions and everything. You're a very good companion."

"Yeah? I'd love to have a little sister. Someone I can take care of and have fun with. Talk with and share secrets with." Neville smiled, and tried to hide the tears as he wiped them off his cheeks.

Luna smiled back and kissed his cheek, then sat back to find him a tissue from one of the pockets in her skirt. "I can be your sister, if you want," she said, looking at him with her big eyes. "I mean, I don't want to be insensitive. I realise that I can't fill in for your loss. But, we can call each other brother and sister and act like that, a little. Take care of each other and have fun together."

He took the tissue gratefully. "I'd like that very much," he said. "I cannot imagine a better sister than you."

It was the best summer either of them could remember. The days flew by in fun and games, talks and hugs. Near the end of August, Neville reluctantly packed his backpack and made his way home to get ready for his sixth year at Hogwarts. On the long lonely walk, he wondered if things would change. Would they... Could they still be this close at school?

As his grandmother bid him farewell on the platform at King's Cross, he sensed a familiar glint of blond amongst the milling crowds. Before he'd even thought about it, he waved and cried out: "Luna! Over here."
She was clutching a copy of the Quibbler as she ran to him, beaming. After a brief hug, accompanied by pleased tutting from his grandmother, he helped Luna get her trunk on the train. They didn't speak as they looked for an empty compartment, but they could both feel it. Things hadn't changed. The bond was still there.
Then Neville saw another familiar head of hair and sped up. "Hi, Harry," Neville said, feeling that this was going to be a very good year.