It was late on a sunny Friday afternoon, and Professor Neville Longbottom couldn't keep his eyes off the clock. The spring air wafting through the windows, full of the scent of growing things, did nothing to help his concentration. He hated Friday afternoons, which were generally empty of classes. A day without classes tended to mean time spent in his office grading papers and going over schedules. During the winter months, he didn't mind this much, but spring made him restless. He glanced outside, then back at the stack of papers on his desk. He looked at them appraisingly, then, seeming to come to a decision, he stood up, grabbed his cloak from the back of his chair, and strode out of his office.
He made his way to the greenhouses, where he stopped just over the threshold and inhaled deeply. It was almost a ritual—he was sure some of his students had noticed it, and was just as sure that some who had started out imitating him in mockery were now breathing in the smell of the greenhouses for other reasons.
Neville Longbottom was the sort of teacher students either deeply loved or found desperately dull. His enthusiasm for his subject endeared him to some and irritated others, but he never decided too soon which students were in which camp. Many times he had encountered students who thought Herbology would be the worst subject they had to take at Hogwarts, but who had changed their minds and made it something of a specialty.
He went out of his way to be there for those students who did love him. The office hours he enjoyed most were those spent with a few students over a pot of tea, discussing their latest projects and their interests outside of class. He'd even had a few students coming to him for romantic advice, which never failed to fluster him. He usually told them that it was the Potions master's job to brew love potions—but that a herbologist grew most of the ingredients. That little joke often worked to put the student off. When it didn't, he would look very grave and admit that he didn't think he was the right person to speak to on the subject. When even that didn't work, he would ask the student in question about the object of his or her affection, and try the best he could to give counsel from his limited knowledge of the particular situation and the broader realm of romantic relationships.
He spoke to members of each house with advice that could have been pulled from all houses. Love wasn't all about getting what you wanted, but knowing what it was you did want could certainly help. You had to be careful not to lose your head. Loyalty was of vital importance. Courage…well, that was necessary to get things off the ground.
He glanced back towards his office, then down at his watch. There was still time to harvest the stinksap from the Mimbulus Mimbletonia. He pulled on a pair of dragon hide gloves and exchanged the robe he had brought from his office for the robe he used specifically for working in the greenhouses. He stopped to stroke the plant affectionately before he began collecting the sap. He had students practice on other plants, but this one was his own special specimen, the very first magical plant he had ever owned all to himself. It was almost a friend.
He smiled as he thought of his human set of friends—Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione—with a combined total of three children at Hogwarts now. Rose reminded him very much of her mother. Her hand was often the first in the air, although Scorpius Malfoy tried his hardest to beat her to it and occasionally succeeded. He seemed to have made it his business to keep her on her toes. Albus was less interested in magical plants, though he pretended interest for his teacher's sake and got good marks. Better than his older brother's had been in his first year—James still had to be reprimanded a bit too frequently for joking with his friends instead of paying proper attention.
Neville finished with his favorite plant and moved on to the Mandrakes, not even stopping to check the time, totally lost in the joy of his work. He settled the earmuffs firmly over his ears and pulled a Mandrake out of its pot. It regarded him fiercely, its mouth wide open in what he knew was a horrible scream. If this one were anything to judge by, the rest must be coming along nicely. The soil just needed aerating. He had always had better results with Mandrakes in well-aerated pots. He tamped the dirt down around the Mandrake he had been examining. What he needed now was a digging fork. He could aerate the soil faster with his wand, but he liked to use the Muggle tools Ron and Hermione had given him when he became a Hogwarts professor. He turned towards his tool rack and took a half-step that was impeded by the presence of another person.
"Hello," she yelled at the top of her voice. "I thought I'd find you here."
Neville, who had fallen backwards and almost knocked the recently repotted Mandrake to the ground, took another deep breath—this time for the oxygen instead of the scent of the greenhouse—and removed his earmuffs.
"I was just aerating some…that is, I thought you weren't coming for another half hour…that is…." He sighed. "Hello, Luna."
"You probably haven't been looking at your watch," she said airily. "I've found it happens quite often when you're in the greenhouse."
Neville looked at his watch. She was right. It was half an hour later than he had thought it was.
"Sorry."
"For loving your work, or for forgetting I was coming?"
"I didn't forget."
"All right, then. Here."
She handed him a small tub full of wriggling, worm-like creatures.
"Are these the drummel worms?" he asked, watching them in fascination.
"Yes, they are," she replied happily. "Not only do they process dirt twice as quickly as normal worms, they've been known to sing Mandrakes to sleep. They're all over British Columbia. Rolf and I were crawling around on our hands and knees for a whole afternoon collecting them, it was quite fascinating."
Neville's face fell.
"Some Muggles were stepping on them, but you really can't hold it against them. The Muggles, I mean. They don't know any better."
Neville studied the worms intently, trying to focus his thoughts on what a good lesson he would have for his students on Monday.
"You're looking a bit peaked, Neville," she said. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"That would be nice," he said.
"Well, then, I think you should offer me some," she said, "because it would be rude of me to offer you some of your own tea, don't you think so?"
"I do think so," said Neville, "and I was going to offer you tea all along."
"Oh, good," she said cheerfully. "I do love your tea."
"Not as much as I love…your present," he said.
She smiled. "They're only drummel worms. And they don't taste at all good."
Neville knew better than to ask her how she knew this. He hung his earmuffs and greenhouse robes on his hook by the door, tucked the tub of drummel worms under one arm, and crooked his other elbow out towards Luna, who took it with both hands. "So, tell me," he said, with just a hint of stiffness in his voice, "how has your work been going?"
Luna was something of a naturalist, something of a zoologist, and something of a conspiracy theorist. She and her partner, Rolf Scamander, traveled the world searching for the sort of magical creatures that most people brushed off as legend. They'd actually found a few, as well as discovering several new magical creatures no one had even imagined before. Drummel worms were among the former—Neville had gotten an ecstatic owl a few days after Luna and Rolf had tracked the legend down to a specific tribe of natives in the far western region of Canada. Her letter had been brimming with her enthusiasm of the find, and of what it meant for the fields of both magical zoology and herbology. She had promised to bring him some as soon as she could spare a moment away, but as her moments away from her job were as few and far between as Neville's moments away from Hogwarts, it had been another few weeks before he got an owl saying she was coming. Luna never asked what his schedule was like, and he didn't care. As far as he was concerned, any time was a good time to see her.
Luna lounged in the softest chair in his office as he puttered around getting the tea ready. She was usually tired when she came, from all the time she put in hunting, although most people couldn't tell the difference between her tired state and her usual dreamy state.
"And so there we were, talking to the head of their tribe, a Muggle himself, if you'll believe it, about any strange rumors of worms with special powers, and he said, 'You must be talking about the drummel worms.' He said he hadn't thought about them, oh, for ages, not since his mother used to tell him stories…."
"Was his mother a witch, then?" Neville asked, placing one lump of sugar and one teaspoonful of cream into Luna's cup and stirring it carefully. There was no answer. He looked over his shoulder.
Luna's eyes were closed, and a satisfied expression hovered on her face. Neville shook his head. Every single time she sat in that chair, she fell asleep for at least five minutes. Once she had slept for several hours. He had gotten a lot of class work done during that visit. She had scolded him mildly about it when she woke up, but he protested that she had looked so peaceful, he couldn't bring himself to wake her. Besides, although he had never told her this, there was something about being nearby while she was sleeping that made him feel close to her in a way that he couldn't quite define. Whenever she left, he carried the memory of watching her sleep.
Luna jerked suddenly, and her eyes shot open. She looked disoriented.
"All right?"
She paused, examining her surroundings. "All right," she said at last. "Now that I'm sure I haven't really fallen from a dragon. Is the tea ready?"
They continued their conversation as Neville settled into the wingback chair next to hers. He told her about his new students, especially those with names she would recognize. They talked about his research into cross-pollinating Mimbulus Mimbletonia with Venomous Tentacula. She told him some funny things that Rolf had said recently. Neville didn't say so, but he thought they would have been funnier if someone besides Rolf had said them. He never knew quite how to take it when she started talking about her partner, especially since….
"People think we're lovers," she said calmly.
Neville almost spit out his last mouthful of tea.
"Rolf and I, not you and I."
He swallowed slowly and looked down at the dregs left in the bottom of the cup, trying to remember what that little crescent shape meant.
"He rather seems to find that an agreeable idea," she said.
Maybe it was a scythe, not a crescent.
"Everything considered, I think we should get married."
"What?" he said, more sharply than he had intended. He seemed to be getting farther and farther away, as if he were watching himself from a great distance.
"You and I, not Rolf and I."
He returned to the moment so abruptly his psyche almost got whiplash.
"What?" he said again.
"It's really the only way to put him off, I think."
"You want to marry me to put off Rolf Scamander?"
"Yes," she said. "But not just for that. You are my best friend."
"Thank you," he said, nonplussed.
"You're welcome. And I enjoy it when you kiss me, and I feel it should happen more often. Do you enjoy kissing me, too?"
The corner of his mouth twitched upward, and he nodded.
"Then I'm sure we'd also enjoy the other physical aspects of marriage, don't you think so?"
Neville coughed. Luna continued to stare at him placidly, waiting for his response. He ran into that frequently with Luna. She had a way of soliciting truth from people, and it never seemed to bother her whether or not the truth was awkward. He generally admired that about her, but sometimes….
He cleared his throat again. "Yes," he said, keeping his tone businesslike.
"Besides, I like your tea so much. I can never make tea this well."
"There's not really a trick to it," said Neville.
"Maybe it's just that it tastes better when I'm drinking it with you."
If he held the cup right, the dregs made a rainbow shape.
"And I'm ever so much fonder of you than I used to be, and I've always been rather fond of you. So," she prompted. "What do you think?"
Neville sat shaking his head in disbelief. He suddenly had the incongruous thought that he spent a lot of time shaking his head around Luna.
"You did ask me to tell you if I ever changed my mind."
"Yes, but…that was fourteen years ago, Luna, I…."
"You've changed your mind, then?"
Neville tried to make his brain focus, but he was hearing Luna's voice from all those years ago, cavalierly listing off a string of impartial objections to his proposal, chief of which was that neither of them was ready or willing to give up their job.
"I see," she nodded. "It was too long to keep up hope."
He thought back—every time he'd seen her, every time he'd had news of her, every time she'd crossed his mind for fourteen years. Every time, he'd had to raise the old objections, and every time, they did rise…but every time, it was with a sort of creak of protest.
"It wasn't a strong hope," he mused, half to himself. "But it never died, either."
"I'll accept it," she declared, and held out her hands. "Will you accept me?"
"My students," he said, the objections that had been pushed off rattling briefly inside him. "Your work…."
"We'll work around those things," she said. "You can spend your summers exploring with me—I'm sure anywhere there are magical creatures, there are lovely magical plants, too. And I can spend holidays at Hogwarts, or longer periods, possibly, perhaps helping teach Care of Magical Creatures when I didn't have an expedition in the offing. And for the times I did have an expedition, and you did have classes to teach, there's always Apparating and such."
"You've thought about this," Neville managed, dumbfounded. "You're…serious."
She regarded him somberly. "I see nothing funny in a fake marriage proposal, Neville."
"Then I accept wholeheartedly." A grin spread across his face. He thought that he might be able to offer competent romantic advice to his students, after all…if any of them found themselves opposite an individual like Luna Lovegood. He bit off a laugh and decided he'd probably still be rather in the dark when it came to student troubles.
"Will you wear sun colors for the wedding?" he asked, rather inanely, as he reached his hands to hers.
"Oh, I don't know. People will expect white."
"You can wear whatever you like. Always. Always do just exactly whatever you like," he said earnestly. "I expect nothing from you. I mean, everything."
"Sometimes they're the same," she said. "Would you mind if I kissed you now?"
Neville loved Friday afternoons.