Neville doesn't really believe in Luna's fanciful beasts--although doesn't every few years Newt Scamander publish a revised edition of his Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, incorporating new articles on creatures of interest to the wizarding world?
Instead, Neville loves to watch Luna talk about the latest reports from the fringes of magizoology. "And Hartung actually sent pictures from the Snorcacks's summer ranges! Scamander says the pictures are really of Highland cattle, and they only look so small because of something with the perspective, but Daddy thinks Hartung is really onto something! The pictures will be in next month's Quibbler, and later this year Daddy is going back to Sweden with Hartung to follow up..."
Luna's face, normally relaxed and dreamy, becomes animated and flashes with happiness and excitement when she has a chance to talk to someone who is willing to listen to what she has to say. Neville loves Luna's Dirigible Plum earrings--they're part of what makes Luna Luna--but on occasions when she is chattering so vividly Neville finds himself thinking of Gran's antique diamond earrings, which she wears on especially formal occasions. And recently he's found himself wondering what Luna would look like in the family diamonds.
Luna isn't that much into Herbology--pruning the mistletoe is a ritual part of the Lovegood family Christmas, but that's about as far as her interest goes.
Instead, Luna loves to watch Neville at work in the greenhouses. His face, normally tense with the suspicion that he's forgotten something important or is about to take a catastrophically wrong step, instead relaxes and beams down on the vegetation before him. His broad, strong hands handle the plants--whether newly sprouted mandrakes or an old, especially truculent Venomous Tentacula--with confidence and competence.
Luna remembers during her second or third year, wandering past one of the greenhouses and seeing a boy bent over one of the workbenches, intent on a solo project, his face glowing with the pleasure of doing something that one enjoys and does well. Even before Ginny introduced them on the Hogwarts Express, that image of serene self-possessedness has stuck in her mind. "What about this flat of mandrake sprouts here, they look underdeveloped compared to the others."
Neville glanced at the tag on the flat. "Oh, these are the control plants. They're only getting the basic dragon-dung fertilizer, so they can be compared to the plants getting the Dirigible Plum extract, the plants getting the Mimbulus Mimbletonia extract, and the ones getting both extracts." His already round face spread into a warm smile. "Sprout promised to pass my findings on to an old student of hers at St Mungo's research department when I've finished. If the results are statistically significant, she'll look into doing a study on animals, and from there--"
Neville's ruddy face, glowing with hope and optimism, suddenly reminds Luna of her mother's necklace of large, round, pink pearls, which Daddy has promised as a present for Luna's seventeenth birthday. Neville seems to like the necklace of butterbeer corks Luna usually wears, but sometimes she wonders what Neville would say if one day she showed up in her mother's pearls.
