DISCLAIMER: *sob* I own nothing. If I owned Harry Potter or any related characters, objects, places, etc, I wouldn't be sitting at home on my stupid, broken computer that we've had for the past six years, screaming at it for spontaneously shutting down, and trying to write a fanfic. You can sue if you really want to, but I must warn you, I can out-yell my four year old sister, out-smart my thirty nine year old mother, and out-argue everyone I know, including you. Plus, there's nothing you can sue me for, so it would just be a big waste of everyone's time.

Author's Note: This is a continuation of The Forgotten Ones, sort of. The major plot is different, though, so I decided not to just add it on as more chapters. The beginning of this, it is admitted, is fluffy and happy, but I promise it'll get more serious eventually.

Author's Note: If you haven't read The Forgotten Ones, read it now, please, because I highly doubt that this is going to explain much of their past. The Forgotten Ones contains the start of their relationship, so you should read that first.

Author's Note: Read and review, please, or I may be forced to stop writing… well, not really, but I won't give a cookie to you if you don't review! Okay, read now.

~READ THE FORGOTTEN ONES! THEN, SKIP FORWARD IN TIME A BIT, UNTIL YOU GET TO THE SUMMER AFTER NEVILLE'S SIXTH YEAR, WHERE THIS STORY STARTS.

Chapter I

Not So Helpless

As usual, Neville had been looking forward to Luna's post. Every morning, as soon as the sun was up, a strange looking creature (a rare species of bird, Neville guessed, but definitely not an owl) arrived on his windowsill carrying increasingly long letters from Luna. At first, he was unhappy with being woken that early, but soon he began to rise before the letters came.

He liked to watch the sunrise; it reminded him of Luna, and the first kiss they ever shared. And when he watched the sky change colors, black, and orange, and purple some days, and finally resulting in the beautiful shade of blue that reminded him of the lake at Hogwarts where they had sat many a day, he knew that Luna, too, was looking at the sky, and he felt as if she were sitting next to him.

He thought it was sort of funny, how she could write for pages and pages about the simplest (not to mention strangest) things: a butterfly that she strongly suspected had links with Cornelius "Goblin Crusher" Fudge, the Crumple-Horned Snorkack that they caught during the summer vacation after her fourth her, the face her father makes when he's tying his shoes, and Neville knew he would never forget the 52 page essay she wrote on nargles the day before.

This time, she wrote about something surprisingly normal: the sunset.

Dear Neville,

I miss you so much! I'm glad that it's only a few more weeks until we go back to Hogwarts, until I get to see your face again.

I hope you liked my last letter. It's really very important to alert the world to the existence of creatures such as nargles.

I watched the sunset last night. Did you see it? It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen…

(It continued on for 63 pages, describing in great detail all the happenings during the aforementioned sunset, including "Crinky" the Snorkack's shouts of fear at the mouse that scuttered across one of his many feet, and how that caused the birds nearby to fly up in warning, and how she could have sworn that one bird actually rose a split second before his shouts, and how that bird has, in fact, been linked to many assorted Dark societies, and…)

And just as I was contemplating the possible extent of that bird's associations with the Dark Side, I turned my back on the remaining light. And do you know what? I felt like as long as I didn't see the sun go down behind the mountains, it never had to.

~All my love,

Luna

Luna's letters always made him feel better about himself, like he really belonged, and, when he was reading them, he felt like the words she wrote down was the sole purpose for his existence. But today, he felt especially touched. Maybe the sun really didn't have to go down at night, he thought. Maybe, if the whole world turned its back on the west during the last moments of dusk, the sun would just stay, frozen, forever. He shook himself out of those thoughts. That was impossible. He was starting to sound like Luna. But is that really a bad thing? I mean, after all, Luna is… In truth, Neville didn't know exactly what Luna was. Unique, wonderful, special… the list went on and on. There was just something about the way she never seemed to know where she was going, but kept walking all the same. The way she always seemed surprised that there was someone else in the room, the way people talked about her, and she knew it, and she didn't seem to care.

But Neville knew that Luna cared. He knew that because he knew that she cried about it sometimes. He knew that people took her belongings, and she was never mad, she never even let on that she really cared. But she did. When she was ignored, she just walked off like she hadn't said anything, or she just kept on talking, until she said what she wanted to say, or until the person who was ignoring her gave up, and responded. Nobody knew that it hurt her when people were cruel. They'd just say "That's loony Lovegood. She probably didn't even notice!" But she did notice. As did Neville.

During the latter part of his sixth year (Luna's fifth), when they were going out, Neville stuck up for Luna. A year earlier, that wouldn't have made any difference, but after assisting in the capture of several Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries at the end of his fifth year, people noticed him a little more. Of course, he was still greatly overshadowed by his fellow Gryffindors, but after he got into a fight with Draco Malfoy about the way he was treating Ginny and hexed the pants off of him (at more than one point literally), he gained some respect. Not to mention, Ginny got a much more faithful and attentive boyfriend.

But whenever Neville wasn't around to defend her, people were as cruel as ever; crueler, actually, since some felt a need to make up for lost time.

And then there was the fact that, now that he was being noticed more, some witches and wizards decided to try to hex Neville, instead.  It was hard for him, it must be admitted, to go from being generally ignored to being hexed at every corner. If it weren't for the D.A., which had been continued at the special request of Dumbledore, Neville doubted he would know enough defensive magic to avoid being seriously injured. Of course, he did get some books on hexes and jinxes, so he wasn't so helpless anymore.