He'd sent Kenneth with a note yesterday morning. It felt odd to be writing to Luna again, though he'd written her every holidays since Dumbledore's Army had thrown them together.

Luna had written first. His Gran had raised an eyebrow as she'd handed him the unassuming beige envelope with Luna's handmade wax seal, made at various times by pressing a shell, a leaf, an oddly shaped stone or once her own thumb into the cooling wax. It was the first time anyone from school had written to him other than the usual lists of textbooks and uniform requirements. Over his breakfast the little letter had given him a small kick as if he'd just been told he was magical enough to go to Hogwarts again. Inside Luna had made no mention of why she'd chosen to write to him or that it was the first time she had done so. Luna started in the middle and expected him to catch up. Though she still terrified him he had wanted to do so. Still if the letter had not been begun 'Dear Neville,' he'd have worried it had be misdirected.

He had written back immediately but it had taken him a few days to send it, held back part in fear that he would seem too eager and in part that he had nothing of interest to say. It had been some time now since those letters had flown back a forth between Yorkshire and Devon, Sweden and Yorkshire and at one time even Devon and Blackpool. Now Kenneth stayed put whilst Neville went back and forth instead.

He'd pressed an ivy leaf from the garden into the note before sealing it with the Longbottom seal which was far less interesting than the weaving, swirling shapes that heralded Luna's letters. He'd regretted the silly gesture as soon as Kenneth was out of reach. The note itself was short.

Luna,

Friday night you and I have reservations at Baiser de la Veela in London at 7pm. I'll call at yours at 6.30pm. Attire is apparently formal. Let me know if this doesn't work.

Yours,

Neville

The whole thing felt all too much like playing grownups. It had been easier to order his friends into dangerous situations than it was to… his grandmother would call it courting he supposed and he honestly had no other word for it. He did want this night to be perfect, a way of showing her how much he felt for her, a perfect night to hold on to when he went to London and she back to Hogwarts.

She glided over the return to school like water striders did on still water but he knew she had not returned to the school since the battle was done. She had, of course, had a father to help and a home of her own to rebuild but he had not forgotten that still and pearlescent Luna the night after the battle. That she did not blink when their separation had been mentioned had not stopped him worrying about the memories that would keep her ever vigilant in the night. He could not see Professor McGonagall allowing him to hover round the Ravenclaw girl's dormitories in case he was needed.

So for one night he promised himself it would be perfect and he would be wonderful and Luna would have another happy memory to number against the pile of ones that she did not speak of.

He knew that each day he had been working himself to physical exhaustion in the hope that he would slip easily into dreamless sleep. Each night he still awoke with a jolt from a dream of first years contorting from cruciatus curses happily sent from Crabbe's wand, or Luna stoically manhandled from the train or finding small uniformed bodies in the courtyard.

Two days ago Seamus had pushed a scrap of parchment across the Gryffindor table with the name and address of the restaurant he'd recommended. He'd winked at Neville but thankfully had said no more.

In the time it had taken Kenneth to get to a hill in Devon and a bright orange room at the top of a tower, in the time it had taken for a short note to be read twice he felt the Galleon in his pocket heat up. Along the edge the coin read "Yes Neville." He flipped the coin and caught it in his left hand feeling its heat fading. His smile did not.

An hour ago a small grey brown owl had landed on his windowsill and given a low whistle. In between his toes and tarsus he held a small missive.

Not that shirt

Neville fed the Finnegan's owl whose fault it was not that his owner was a wanker. He changed the shirt. He'd put a potion in his hair and attempted to make himself less Neville like. Then he had got back in the shower when he realised he looked like he was trying to not look like Neville. He'd contemplated leaving the stubble on his chin rather than risking cutting his face with nervous hands. The certain look of disappointment on his grandmother's face should he leave the house stubbled and slicked back was too much to bear so the stubble went too. He checked that his wand was safely inside his waistcoat for the seventeenth time. His savings went into his coat before he finally left his bedroom.

His Gran had straightened his tie and run her bony hand across his shoulder smoothing its line, before producing from her red handbag several galleons and handing them to him sternly. He wondered, as he thanked her uncomfortably, if she had done the same thing when a young Frank had taken the effervescent, sunny Alice somewhere. He didn't ask. You didn't ask. Not here.

And then in a moment so unexpected and unlikely she had pulled him towards her giving him the briefest of hugs before letting him go. She gave a curt nod and returned to her armchair in the good room. Neville stood for a moment in the entrance way uncertain that it had happened at all.

Arriving at the front of the Lovegood's home he fought down his nerves. From the outside the charcoal grey rook with its fluid curves looked serene in the green Devon hillside but the soft pound and whirl of the presses continued from behind the heavy front door.

Neville was twelve minutes early when he knocked on the door, no longer able to stand self-consciously beyond the steep slate stairs counting minutes so as not to be rude. Only one half of the door opened revealing the top half of Mr Lovegood. The wizard squinted at him, his robes hung haphazardly about his frame as though dressing was his third or fourth priority after informing the world about the existence of the crumple-horned snorkack and the reality of Stubby Boardman's arrest. Though Mr Lovegood had always seemed preoccupied, since his return from Azkaban his preoccupation had taken on an extra layer of perplexion and if he was not fiddling with his presses and articles he was often asleep, a sleep Neville had begun to feel was a way of avoiding rather than resting.

"Yes?" he asked as if he had never seen Neville before in his life.

"Good evening Mr Lovegood," he tried. "It's Neville, Neville Longbottom? I, Uh I'm here to collect Luna."

"Luna?" Mr Lovegood leant over the iron bar holding the bottom half of the door in place. "My Luna?"

"Ah yes," he said as Mr Lovegood closed the door. Neville took a single step back down the stairs. This was not a promising beginning.