Disclaimer: I am not Jo Rowling. I do not have any hope of ever owning Harry Potter.

A/N: I know, Jo said there wasn't any sort of possibility that there might be something between Neville and Luna but this was an itch I had to scratch at least once. Now the setting of this story is definitely post-OotP but since the majority of it was written pre-HBP I don't want to classify it as taking place then. Read, review, no flames please.

She is an oddity.

With a string of brightly colored Bertie Bott's beans around her throat and acorns hanging from her ears she smiles brightly at him in the hallway.

He wonders briefly how it is he never noticed her before; she is rather noticeable after all.

"Hello Neville" Her voice drifts from her mouth and he stares mutely before coming back to himself.

"Morning Luna"

She eats at their table more often now, across from him, next to Ginny, always polite, pleasant and odd.

Luna Lovegood is never dull.

Hermione scoffs behind her napkin more often than not at Luna's tales and he can't help but feel a bit indignant on the girl's behalf. He is sure she can hear the giggles and the whispers, feel the pointed stares. "Loony Lovegood" with her candy necklaces and bottle cap earrings and hats his grandmother would adore.

But there is no hardness in her voice, no weariness in her eyes, she has seen death and loss and has risen unscathed. Even Harry couldn't do that.

Or maybe she really is just crazy.

But to himself, he'd rather just think her resilient.

There is comfort when he is around her, the sort of familiarity he can't claim to share with any other person, and he's left to wonder what it is about her that makes it so.

There is an eccentric sort of loveliness to her, with corn silk hair that is never really kept and blue eyes that never really focus on any one thing. She is a haze of color and sound, like a dream, floating around the school as unexpectedly as Peeves, only she's far more likely to drop a radish into your open hand then a chandelier on your head.

She is wonderful, he decides one day as they walk around the frozen lake and she warns him to be mindful of the surrounding habitation. "It is yodlers season after all. Wouldn't want one of those crawling into your ear and broadcasting your thoughts to half of Bristol, would you?" Untainted and undemanding, understanding without needing to be understood, she fills him with a sort of hope.

He smiles and shakes his head. "No, I don't suppose I want half of Bristol to listen to my thoughts."

Most of which, by now, center on her, and those earrings that change daily and the fact that she doesn't put up a front so much as she exposes all of herself to the world. Which might mean she's braver than Harry too.

"Did you know that the Ministry plants loveflubs all over the country? They all hatch in spring that's why people go mad…they get bitten and come down with spring fev—"

He doesn't know what a loveflub is, doesn't ask, because she's wonderful and odd and perhaps insane but definitely familiar, and he's leaned down to kiss her before he can really stop himself. He's in Gryffindor for a reason he thinks as he lips press against hers.

She doesn't turn away.