He found her in what everyone else would call "their" clearing but she called "the unicorns'" clearing because "they were here long before us, and they'll be here long after us, and so that really means that they have more right to claim it than we do, don't you think?", accompanied by an innocent blink or two.
"You're alive!" he managed to get out, overwhelmed with relief. She hadn't come back after the Christmas holidays (taken from the train on the way back to King's Cross, everyone said), and when none of his owls had come back with a reply, he'd been frantic with worry.
"Yes." She smiled at him, but it wasn't quite the airy, carefree smile she'd had six months ago. Then again, he knew that his expressions weren't as carefree, either. Nobody's were, these days. "It was a bit touch and go sometimes, but we all muddled through."
He gave her what he imagined must be a fairly dopey grin in return, but he was honestly too thankful to care. The battle just a few days prior had been horrendous, and the days after not much better. Almost all the fallen were still lying in state in the Great Hall, although they had at least been lifted off the floor and onto trestle tables. He'd been worried that her name would appear on the list of those who wouldn't ever be coming back again.
She patted the log she was sitting on, shuffling over to make room for him. "How's Ginny?" she asked as he sat beside her.
"She's . . . okay. Physically, at least." He could feel the smile fall away as he considered their other friend and 'rebel leader'. One of her older brothers was currently occupying a trestle table in the Great Hall. "You know the Weasleys went into hiding, so she didn't come back after Easter?"
"Hmm." She rocked absent-mindedly as the hum of acknowledgement left her. "I know. The other side were . . . shouting about it. They were very loud."
There was something there, something he should ask about, but her mouth had taken on the peculiar flatness that meant that she wasn't going to say anything more about a certain topic, although it oddly looked as though she was holding the words in. Soon, he promised himself. She just needs time, we all do, and then I'll ask her.
"Anyway," he continued, as she gave him a sideways glance that said she knew what he was up to, "they're all in shock, obviously, but they're rallying round George. He's not really doing too well."
"Well, he wouldn't be," she said, pragmatically. "He's not sharing his wrackspurts anymore. Anyone would find that hard to adjust to."
He blinked at her for a moment. "…Right," he agreed, eventually, although he wasn't entirely sure what he was agreeing with. Sometimes it was better to just let her be her, although he was getting better at getting the gist of what she meant. Glancing around the clearing, he cast about for a change of subject. "Do you think we'll see the unicorns today?" he wondered.
She sighed, a bit mournfully. "No, they won't come," she said. "Not for a long while. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named spent too much time here recently; it's too murky for them. In a few years, maybe."
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and she leant against him for a brief moment, taking comfort before the touch got too much for her and she sat up again. "Things will get better now," he said, managing to get it out a lot more confidently than he felt. "Now that V-Voldemort's gone."
"Yes, they will," she agreed. Abruptly, she got to her feet and turned to give him a small smile. "Come on," she urged. "I need to check on the pennywhistles behind greenhouse four, and I'm sure I spotted an opal-shelled heffalump near the Lake; I should check that out, they leave behind the most beautiful shells, you know, and they're actually surprisingly good for fertilizer—"
He laughed as he got up as well and followed her from the clearing. He was so glad his friend had survived.
Luna had found the strange boy in the clearing, anxiously pulling up blades of grass by the handful. Well, not that strange, perhaps. She had a vague recollection of meeting him on the train when Ginny Weasley had come to sit in her compartment along with Harry Potter. She couldn't quite remember his name, though. The wrackspurts had probably hidden it from her. They liked to do that.
"Hello," she said. "Have you come to see the unicorns, too?"
The boy jumped when she spoke, spinning round to look at her before scrambling to his feet, the plucked grass scattering in all directions around him. "Um, hi, sorry, hi," he blurted. "S-sorry, did you want to be alone? I can leave—"
Luna found herself laughing, and the boy's face fell. "Why should you have to leave?" she asked him. "The clearing doesn't belong to me. You have as much right to be here as anyone, as long as the unicorns let you."
"Oh." The boy shuffled his feet, scraping the toe of one shoe across the grass in front of him. "I-I just thought…" His voice trailed off and his shoulders hunched.
"I'm Luna," she said, stepping closer. "Luna Lovegood. We met on the train coming to Hogwarts."
"Neville Longbottom." The boy went to hold out a hand, then seemed to remember that she hadn't offered first and dropped it again, flushing in embarrassment. "I remember. Ginny said you were in Ravenclaw." He glanced down at the grass again. "Are you sure you don't mind—?" he began.
Luna smiled and dropped to sit at his feet. Neville looked surprised but slowly lowered himself to sit back down when she beckoned. "Of course I don't mind," she assured him. "Unicorns are herd animals, after all."
"Um…" Neville looked a bit bemused by this, but Luna thought that was alright; he'd understand soon enough. He'd just opened his mouth to say something else when Luna tilted her head. The unicorns were coming. She could feel the vibration of their travel through the ground. The majestic creatures tended to move silently, but there were still ways to sense them approach, if you listened hard enough.
Neville stifled a gasp as the lead stallion cautiously entered the clearing, head raised and sniffing for danger. Satisfied that the two students were the only other beings nearby, the unicorn tossed his head with a huff, allowing the rest of the herd to stream past him.
Luna smiled as she split her attention between watching Neville and watching the unicorn foals begin to play. One of them cantered towards them, then bounced to a stop, front legs stiff, obviously unsure as to whether they were safe or not.
Without taking her eyes from the foal, Luna reached out and grabbed hold of Neville's hand, tugging him back towards her from where he'd been trying to unobtrusively shuffle away.
"Um, Luna, I don't think I should be near them," Neville hissed in her ear. "I'm a boy; unicorns don't like boys. I don't want to get skewered!"
A giggle wormed its way up her throat and burst out. "Don't be silly," she said. "They don't care what gender you are, only whether you're pure of heart or not. If you weren't, the herd wouldn't be in the clearing with us at all." She held out a hand, palm up, towards the foal, who stretched out his neck but refused to move his feet. Luna laughed again as the foal almost overbalanced and had to take a step forward to steady himself.
Neville made an odd sound, and Luna turned her head to discover that another foal – obviously braver than the first one – had approached him from the other side and was now snuffling intently around him, apparently trying to decide if he was food or something to play with. Neville was sitting very stiffly, trying not to move and scare the foal away.
"You needn't be afraid," Luna informed him, gently moving her fingers to tease at the muzzle of the first foal. "I already told you, they won't harm you."
"A-are you sure?" Neville asked, almost in a whisper, as though he didn't want the adult unicorns to overhear him.
"Oh, yes," Luna said, taking hold of his hand and stretching it out towards the foal that was so interested in him; a filly, if she wasn't mistaken. "I've been coming here since first year."
Hesitantly, Neville's fingertips brushed over the filly's neck. The unicorn stilled for a moment, then turned to look into Neville's eyes. He almost seemed to stop breathing.
Luna remembered how it felt, to have a unicorn – such a pure and majestic creature – look deep into your soul and then to feel it accept you. She wasn't surprised when Neville released a breath that was almost a sob when the filly blinked and went back to snuffling around him.
Blinking, Neville reached out of his own accord this time and ran a gentle hand along the filly's mane, smiling when she made an indignant sound and ducked away behind him. Then he turned that smile on Luna. "Thank you," he said.
Luna smiled back. "You're welcome!" she said.
She thought she might have just made a friend.
He found her in the clearing, unsurprisingly, the night before the wedding, but this time he didn't enter it to join her. She was lying back in the grass, hair fanned out around her head, her attention split between the man lying next to her and the stars above, ignoring the young unicorn mare that was determinedly nibbling on the edges of her hair.
She had met Rolf Scamander whilst travelling through the jungles of Peru. Charlie Weasley had almost swooned like an old Muggle Victorian lady when he'd first been introduced to Luna's fiancé. And when McGonagall – Minerva – had informed all the staff that they'd requested permission to have their wedding here in the grounds of Hogwarts, Hagrid had had to be fanned with an extra-large tea-towel by three house-elves. Trust Luna to find someone as creature-mad – and almost royalty to every other creature-mad person, to boot – as she was.
It was a good thing that Rolf's grandfather had declared himself too old to make the trip over to England, otherwise he suspected that Hagrid and Charlie would have combusted on the spot.
The brightness of her laugh drew his attention again. Rolf, too, was chuckling, looking at her with more of a besotted expression that he would have expected from the man.
Then again, it was Luna. Everyone who took the time to get to know her grew to love Luna.
Seeing Rolf lean in to kiss her, he hastily withdrew. They deserved their privacy, and Merlin knew, he didn't want to know just what his friend got up to with her soon-to-be husband.
He'd wait until tomorrow, instead, when he and Harry would walk her down the aisle. They'd tried to argue that it should be Xenophilius' job, but the elderly man had demurred, insisting that there was no-one better than one of his girl's closest friends, and the Boy-Who-Lived.
On his way back up to the castle, he ducked briefly into greenhouse thirteen. Ready and waiting to be moved to the end of the aisle first thing in the morning were two large shrubs that had been carefully and lovingly pruned into – according to Luna's descriptions – a pair of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. He had no idea whether he'd gotten them right, but Xenophilius had beamed and clapped him on the shoulder when he'd seen them, so apparently they'd pass muster.
He couldn't wait for his friend to see them.