Luna wasn't sure what to do. She'd just rejected the love of her life, and there weren't really any indications that she'd have another chance. She hadn't many friends left — most had moved away or were married to people she'd been in love with or were dead. So she did what any normal, heartbroken, lonely, having-recently-rejected-the-love-of-her-life-for-reasons-she-couldn't-clearly-explain witch would do in that situation: she went to Hogsmeade, ordered a butterbeer from a blonde woman who looked vaguely familiar, and drank until she wasn't crying anymore. And then kept drinking, and kept drinking, and kept drinking.

"That's last call for you, pet, you can't have another. I'll call you a broom, unless you prefer a Floo escort." The blonde woman was smiling at Luna, so Luna frowned back.

"Excuse me, I have the money to pay, and I am of age, and," a hiccup, "you are a barmaid, are you not? Isn't your job to give me drinks and my job to pay you? What's the matter with you?"

"Luna, I'm not giving you anymore to drink, unless it's a sobering-up potion, and I've already sent off a warning owl to the other local pubs. You'll get no more drink tonight. Now, d'you prefer a broom or a Floo escort?" The blonde woman's face had reddened, and she looked strangely uncomfortable giving orders.

"You are a horrible barmaid. Horrible. And how do you know my name? And I could hex you, right now, and you'd give me more, and you have no idea what I've been through, and you'd best give me another drink before you regret it." All of this was said in Luna's best elocution, which at that moment was a mostly-slurred drawl of beer and crying, her tongue feeling fat and heavy, her face too hot and pinched.

"If you did you'd feel awful about it in the morning, Luna, and you'd remember me if you weren't so drunk."

Luna stared at the woman. Chubby, round-faced, pleasant open expression, big blue eyes, dirty blonde hair swept into two plaits like a schoolgirl. The Leaky Cauldron. A barmaid. "Hannah Abbott?"

"Ah, there you are," Hannah said with a smile. "Aye, it's me. I run the place now, and Neville teaches, you know. When did you get back in town?"

But Luna, having nodded off, didn't answer.

—-

Three days. That's how long it took for Luna to gather up her courage and go back to the Cauldron to apologize. It took three minutes for Neville Longbottom to sweep her up into a hug and tell her how much he'd missed her.

They closed the bar early and dragged her upstairs to their tiny, cramped, deliciously homey flat. Neville's books and potted plants were crammed into shelves and cabinets and the two small windows. Lace doilies and pale china dishes struggled valiantly against the dim cramped space, and if Luna had been in a better mood she would have giggled at the venomous tentacula cutting snapping at her from a cat-shaped teapot atop a lavender doily.

Neville had changed: he was smiling and chatty, full of questions about the plants Luna had seen in her travels, sweetly proud of his students and apparently overjoyed to gossip with someone who hadn't heard it all before. "I've a bunch of our old classmates' kids, now, you know that Padma Patil married a Muggle weatherman? Their daughter's quite a talent, I have hopes for her as an assistant someday. And Katie Bell married Oliver Wood, you know, the Quidditch dynasty of the century, their sons run the Gryffindor team now, one wants to teach, but Madame Hooch is still going strong, so it'll never happen."

Hannah, it turned out, was still a bit naive and a bit cloying, but she was also wickedly funny and very kind. She made Luna a cuppa while Neville talked about teaching at Hogwarts and the new crop of aconite he'd managed to coax out of the poor Hogsmeade soil. She cried on Hannah's shoulder and told them the whole story, and Neville fetched her a tin of crumbly biscuits and a butterbeer from downstairs.

"You did the right thing, Luna, dear," Hannah murmured, petting Luna's hair gently. "You may not want to hear it, but you did."

Luna hiccuped, sipped her butterbeer, and sniffled. "I know. But I just…" she trailed off, dissolving into tears again.

"Hannah's right," Neville said, nervously fiddling with his scarf. "You did what you needed to do. Like you said, she'd given no thought at all to you. That's hardly fair, Luna."

"I know, I know." Luna wiped her eyes and sat up straight. "Thank you both, honestly, you've been so kind."

"Come by next week, Luna, dear, we're having Dean and Seamus over for tea, they'd love to see you."

"And if you'd bring a cutting of your dirigible plums, I'm dying to see them. Mine never seem to take, the soil's too dry here."

Luna promised to do so, and waved goodbye as she stepped into the fireplace. "Lovegood house," she said clearly, and was whisked away to her home.

She had barely stepped out of the fireplace when the knock at the door came, loud and insistent.

"Who's there," she called, wiping soot off of her face and dusting off her robes.