Sitting the sun under the café's umbrella, Neville was daydreaming of Luna. In her last letter she said that she was going to Ireland to watch the unicorn migration. He was finally coming home from France and she wasn't going to be there. The luck of it all. He was having trouble recalling her scent and the sound of her voice. He missed how she seemed like she was off in her own world, believed many strange theories and would always tell the honest truth. It had taken two years of working for the aurors in France for him to realise it, but he was going to marry that girl. He had a whole month before she came back to prepare how he was going to propose.
He was thinking an afternoon tea party, just the two of them since it would be midsummer when she returned, and Luna loved the outdoors. The sunshine, the flowers – those gnomes in his garden that was banned from kicking out of his garden, she loved them all (especially the gnomes). Also there was no way he was going to have an audience surround him when he would be nervous enough. He thought he might ease into it by telling her that he had resigned from the aurors and had been offered a position to teach herbology at Hogwarts. He was definitely going to be home regularly and not in too much danger (he couldn't say for sure that there would be no danger as it is Hogwarts, she knew what could happen there). He was going to start there in September.
Neville even bought the perfect ring. It was a silver band with a silver flower with the diamond in the middle. When he saw it he immediately thought of Luna. Everything is set for when she returns for him to sweep her off her feet.
The day Luna was to come home, Neville was anxiously looking at the clock, the fireplace and the weather. Even though the forecast had said there was no chance of rain, he wasn't going to risk his set up outside. He had gotten everything prepared so that he could lead her outside to have tea and hear about her trip. Then time it right and pop the question.
Suddenly the fireplace lit up with green flames ….and a raven haired woman stepped out. Neville was reeling from the shock of seeing this woman instead of Luna he almost didn't look at her properly as she dusted herself off and looked around. It was Luna. The darkness of her hair was almost too dark for her, it gave her skin an almost deathly pale look about it.
"NEVILLE!" Luna said as she flung her arms around him. Luna wasn't keen on touching, she only did hugged or kissed him when he initiated it.
"I missed you Luna," He said to her hair.
"And I, you." She turned her head to face him and gave him a quick peck before breaking the hug. Who was this girl and where was Luna?
A month passed and Neville still hadn't proposed. He wasn't as keen on this Luna. She wasn't like her old self. He was going to leave her again to go to Hogwarts soon and there were a few things that worried him. She would always talk about Matt, a guy on her research team that she had become close with. The caught up after work regularly and now had more things in common with him than Neville. Luna still had that dreamy far off look about her but she now paid as much attention to current affairs as she did the stories that her father printed. She was also extremely forceful. If Neville was curled up on the couch reading and she wanted to make out with him, she would pull his book down and kiss him. Neville was a little intimidated by that.
When Neville started teaching at Hogwarts, he found it hard to get the students as interested in the plants as he was. That time spent as an auror made him forget how much he enjoyed the wonders of the plant world. Eventually this passion for the plants got a few of the students with the herbology bug. Many took up coming down to the greenhouses at lunch to help him look after the plants.
He met Hannah Abbot again. She was there teaching transfiguration. They often spent evenings chatting and marking their student's homework in the transfiguration classroom. They were comfortable evenings until Hannah invited him for a drink the Friday night. He knew she didn't intend for it to be a friendly drink and so he avoided her. He may dislike how Luna had changed but he his feelings hadn't changed. She was still Luna, he never gave the new her a chance. Neville started avoiding Hannah and only referred to her as Professor Abbot. The faculty and students had noticed what was happening between them. Many of the students gossiped about them, saying that they were now lovers but hiding it. He counted the days until Christmas holidays.
Neville had been only at the grate a moment before being engulfed in a hug by someone with pale pink hair. Neville heard a male laugh. He couldn't see beyond the hair. Slowly the girl with the hair let him go and he saw it was Luna. It was his turn to hug her back. He planted kisses upon kisses on her face. Completely embarrassing her in front of her friend.
"I'm guessing you missed Luna as much as she did you," laughed Matt in his Irish tones, "I've been getting the count down. She's been bouncing around with nerves this morning, and invited me over to keep her calm."
"Haha, I guess I should thank you then, but right now. I just want some alone time with my gorgeous girl." Matt nodded at Neville's request and turned on the spot and disappeared. Neville scooped up Luna and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom. She still was his Luna.
A/N: As always at the moment, this is for the Quidditch League. My pairing was Luna and Neville and I had to write about a dislike. I didn't use any prompts.