Luna's new Spectrespecs don't reveal what they're supposed to. Not that she minds.
A/N: Written for the 2009 Thirty Days of Neville ficfest on LJ.
"Luna! Did you have a good summer?"
Luna, on Platform 9 ¾ and about to board the train, turned in the direction of the familiar and friendly voice. For a second she couldn't identify the speaker until he spoke again, with that signature trace of a northern accent "How was Sweden? Did you and your father find a Snorcack?"
Luna gazed at Neville, who had apparently shot up by several inches since she had seen him last in June. He was talking about his recent trip to Paris to see his great-grandmother. "While I was there I went around to all sorts of gardens—Wizarding and Muggle. I must have walked at least five miles each day. C'mon, let's get on the train while we can still get a seat. Need some help with that?" Not waiting for an answer, Neville picked up Luna's valise and climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express. Were those muscles rippling beneath his light jumper? Luna cheerfully followed him onto the train.
Neville was still talking, about something called the Société des Plantes Magiques. "And Sprout—she wrote me a letter of introduction to the director—is corresponding with them on their mandrake genodiversity program...." That agreeable voice washed over Luna's ears.
When Neville called out to Harry and invited him to sit with them, Luna realized that she was slightly annoyed. In no time she had become enchanted with the idea of spending the train ride in a compartment with only Neville. But they did have a whole school year before them, and Professor Sprout seemed to have trusted Neville with the keys to the Hogwarts greenhouses. Once settled into the compartment, Luna drifted off into a reverie, imagining herself and Neville...abusing Sprout's trust. She unseeingly opened her copy of the Quibbler and detached the pair of Spectrespecs included with that month's copy.
"Oi! Come back here, Trevor!" Neville jumped up from his seat and plunged beneath it, in pursuit of his wayward toad. Luna approvingly noted that Neville's arse resembled two Dirigible Plums in one small bag.
"You don't have to sit with them." A girl with too much eye makeup and a small, sour aura stood in the doorway. Luna was pleased to see Harry turn his gaze from the ambitious fourth-year to his roommate, still bum-forward and rummaging beneath his train seat. Hmmmm.... Luna slipped on her new Spectrespecs and gazed about the compartment.
The specs were not doing their intended job. They weren't revealing the Nargles Luna expected to see in the compartment, or the Wrackspurts one would expect to find bumbletumbling about Neville's ears. Her gaze slid downwards, as Neville had recovered Trevor and returned to his seat. Wait—had Neville taken off his jersey? Between the growth spurt and his Paris excursions, Neville's fleshy build had melted into an impressive figure, as Luna's Spectrespecs were revealing. Only the Mimbulus Mimbletonia in Neville's lap blocked her view.
Luna's gaze shifted over to Harry, who also appeared not to be wearing the oversized rugby shirt and faded jeans in which he had boarded the train. "And I went with the Weasleys to Puddlemere United versus Chudley Cannons—"
"I was at that match too! After what happened at the Ministry, Gran finally agrees I'm old enough to go places by myself on the Knight Bus—can't wait until I pass my Apparation exam. Did you see Oliver after the game...?" The sight of the two young men (seemingly undressed, in Luna's gaze), avidly talking on a topic of tremendous mutual interest, was better than a Blibbering Humdinger sighting. She found herself remembering several years ago, the evening she had spied on Cedric Diggory and Roger Davies as they had...well, she hadn't been near enough to hear what they were discussing, but whatever it was, it had been of tremendous emotional importance to both.
When Harry and Neville left for lunch with Slughorn (the two of them under one Invisibility Cloak?), Luna's imagination went into overdrive. Forgetting the flask of Gulping Plimpy soup Father had prepared for her, she pictured Neville and Harry together in their dorm room, the two of them sprawled on one bed, avidly discussing Quidditch, or Dumbledore's Army, or the Umgubular Slashkilter recently spotted in the House of Lords. The candles would be burning low, and Harry and Neville would realize they'd been talking for hours. They would look at each other with affection and deep comfort in each other's presence, and simultaneously the two of them would melt into a deep, prolonged kiss. The image was so delicious Luna was almost disappointed when Neville returned alone after lunch.