There is no nice way to break someone's heart. There's no potion designed to ease the pain of unreturned love, nor spell to help one forgot lost love. Luna Lovegood had never intentionally hurt anyone outside of self-defence but now she had little choice; she had never meant for Neville to love her.
"Go deeper Neville!" she said softly, watching her friend dig in the soft earth in his backyard.
"How deep do I need to go?" huffed Neville sweat dripping down his pink face.
Neville had decided to try his hand at vegetable gardening this summer; tomatoes, corn, and some nice radishes were already sprouting. Today they were planting carrots and potatoes.
"Well my mum used to say potatoes are hard but they love soft dirt. She'd dig a huge hole, at least three feet deep, then separate all the rocks and fluff the dirt."
"Fluff dirt?" laughed Neville.
"Just make sure there's not a bunch of rocks or solid clumps of earth!" she said in an uncharacteristically annoyed tone.
Grabbing a spade she knelt down beside him and began ripping into the dirt making a pile of soil behind her and ignoring the adoring sheen in Neville's eyes as they worked the earth tegether.
Why did boys have to be so silly Luna wondered as she observered him. Every few seconds Neville would glance up at her and open his mouth before shaking his head and returning to the task at hand. Everything used to be so simple, friends were friends and awkward feelings weren't a problem.
What had changed?
Was it simply part of growing up? Loathe though she was to admit it they had all grown up rather quickly the last couple of years. Neville had changed from boy from man, complete with an Order of Merlin and status of war hero.
Luna had changed as well, but she didn't quite feel like a women. She felt like a girl still with far too many plans to be courting anyone.
"Go deeper still Nev' a few more inches. I'll start on the dirt."
Setting the small shovel aside Luna stuck her hands directly into the freshly turned soil. There weren't too many rocks in the dirt but there was plenty of clumps to break up. Within a few moments Neville joined her making the job go much faster.
When the dirt was at last clump free the pair pushed three quarters of it into the hole and then placed the prepared potatoes and carrots into the loamy ground and covered them completely with the last of the soil.
"Let's go have some lunch then." Neville said awkwardly.
"That sounds nice." replied Luna with a smile.
"We need to talk anyway Neville." she began in her normal dreamy tone as the pair walked towards the Longbottom Estate home.