A/N: Well, I'm just bouncing all over the place lately. I was thinking about Neville, and Luna, and how JKR said they marry people we don't know. We want all our favorite characters to pair off neatly, but they were really just at the end of high school. Most of my friends (and me) are years out of college and still working it out. So it's unfair, really, to expect so much of these sweet fictional teenagers. (Don't hate me, I actually love this ship, usually, but wanted to try and think through canon!)

Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong entirely to the great JKR.

They'd dated for a little while. After Hogwarts, after the madness of the battle had waned, and normal life slowly, haltingly reasserted itself. He wasn't sure now why he'd thought it was a good idea. He supposed it was that everyone else was pairing off, and at his core he did hate to be left out.

So for about three months, while he, Hermione, Luna and the few other students of their age returned to Hogwarts to have a real seventh year, Neville and Luna held hands, kissed in the forest, sat by each other at lunches and dinners, and wondered if this was how it worked. Neither one had ever dated, not really – he was far too shy and awkward, and she was far too distracted and strange.

But he'd watched his friends. Everyone but Ron had known that Lavender wasn't the right girl for him, and so Neville had watched them as he did one of his test plants in the herbology greenhouses. He'd even taken notes.

Day 3: Ron sits by friends instead of Lavender. She storms out of common room. He doesn't notice.

Day 10: Ron sits by friends instead of Lavender, but she has learned storming out won't matter. She sits in his lap, instead. Hermione leaves. Lavender looks happy, Ron looks confused, Harry looks resigned.

Day 45: Ron studying in common room with me, Lavender comes in and squeals "Won Won!" Ron visibly winces and his ears go red. Then straightens up and turns around with a smile. Like walking into potions class.

He liked to think that no one could be a worse pairing than those two. And, much less frequently, he'd noted little things that good couples did:

Note: Hermione always scans the room for Ron when she first walks in, and smiles when she sees him.

Note: Harry is often touching Ginny, nothing weird, just legs or arms or hands in contact.

Note: The look on Ron's face when Hermione is being particularly clever. Absolute pride.

Note: Ginny fixing Harry's tie, Harry's untucked shirt, Harry's hair, Harry's quidditch robes. Harry letting her.

So he'd fancied that he was ready. He was seventeen, going on eighteen, after all. And everyone knew that by that age you were all grown up. Luna was pretty, and sweet, and she needed him. He was the one who made sure she stopped studying to eat (he'd watched Ron perfect that over years of carefully whining about food to a distracted Hermione), and half the time if she wasn't holding his hand she'd have wandered off and never made it to the quidditch game or the astronomy tower. It was nice to feel needed.

The kissing had been fun. Once he'd put it to her as a challenge – "what kind of kissing is the most pleasurable for both people?" – she'd been very willing to experiment a bit. Although he'd expected it to be a bit more, well, exciting. But he knew less about kissing, so he didn't have a lot of ideas, and hers were generally a bit off the wall. ("What if I hover charm myself upside down and we try that?")

On rare occasions, her mind would wander down a darker path, to memories of her time imprisoned at the Malfoy manor, and here Neville knew what to do. When he saw that haunted look come into her eye, he'd quickly distract her with nargles, or his remembrall, or the latest Quibbler. It had never occurred to him that she might have just needed to talk about it. He'd only ever seen the bits of Harry and Ron working to make their girlfriends happy. They didn't really talk about the times when they let them be sad until they were all much older.

And so, he followed the rules that he had so carefully studied, and did everything the way it was supposed to be done. And Luna smiled and went along with it. And when he walked into a room and found her with his eyes, there was a feeling of satisfaction ("Right, there she is. Good.") but not the electric thrill that Ginny sometimes talked about when they were at the Three Broomsticks waiting for Harry and Ron to visit.

One Hogsmeade day, during just such a visit, Ginny caught him checking to make sure he and Luna were walking with their arms around each other like the other two couples. She looked away quickly, but he blushed, embarrassed that she'd seen how unsure he was. Later that evening, before it was time to go, Harry ruefully pulled him aside.

"Look, Neville, how are you and Luna doing?"

He'd been confused. How were they supposed to be doing? He'd taken all of the good parts of the relationships he'd observed and left all of the fighting off.

"We're great, Harry, really great."

Harry grimaced and looked over his shoulder at Ginny, who was having some giggly conversation with Luna.

"It's just – listen. Don't feel like you have to force anything. Luna's wonderful, you know I'm fond of her, but sometimes she's a bit… absent." Harry paused, trying to find the right words. "I just remember, with Cho, she was always half somewhere else, thinking about Cedric. And we did all the right things and kissed and held hands but I always had a list in my mind of what needed to happen next."

Neville paused, holding his butterbeer in midair. How could Harry have needed a list? Harry Potter, who always knew what to do and how to do it right?

"And, when you're so busy worrying about whether you're a proper couple and you're keeping up with the others… there shouldn't be a list. I mean, for other things, for birthdays or date ideas or something, but that person will be on your mind without you needing to put them there."

Harry sighed, and looked at his watch.

"I'm not sure I'm making sense, but if you want to talk, mate, I'm happy to listen. Anytime. Just floo me," he offered.

Neville nodded and gulped the rest of his butterbeer down.

On the walk home in the snow that night he tried not going through his relationship checklist (1. Find Luna. 2. Make sure she's wearing her coat. 3. Hold hands or put an arm around her, depending on what others are doing.) He just walked in the group, and Luna did too. She didn't look around for him, or come ask for his hand, or seem hurt or confused. He was so lost in thought that he started to lag behind the girls, until Ginny (not Luna) noticed and dropped back to walk with him.

She put an arm around him and leaned in, and it was comfortable, born of years of friendship and perfected as lieutenants in the D.A. last year.

"Neville," she said, finally. "It's ok to get it wrong, you know. You just have to be honest once you realize that it's wrong."

He was quiet for a minute, as they crunched through the snow. He watched Hermione's bushy brown head shake in amusement at something that Luna's sleeker golden one said.

"But how do you know if it's wrong?" he whispered.

She smiled. "Oh, sometimes it's big things, like he insults your brother, or your house, or your friends and it's just not funny at all. Sometimes it's smaller, and it builds. I mean, there's nothing wrong with Dean, I just stopped wanting to be around him. And then finally stupid little things caused big stupid fights."

They walked the rest of the way in silence, broken only once when Hermione turned around to look for them, and called back that they should hurry up or it would get dark.

Ginny grinned. "Hermione, she beats a dark lord and still can't bear to break curfew. Come on."

And they took off running and made it to the gates just as Filch was preparing to close them. He gave them dirty looks, but let them through.

Over the next week, Neville conducted small experiments. Testing to see if Luna would react if they sat in the same group at lunch, but not next to each other. Waiting to see if she would seek him out. Waiting for her to initiate kisses that weren't strictly for research purposes. And watching to see if he was disappointed as she sweetly, blithely, and quietly failed each and every test.

He was, a bit, but mostly because he'd wanted to be right. To be finished, and set for life the way he sensed that Harry and Ron were.

Luna finally did come over to him, at the end of the week before Christmas holidays.

"Are we done dating, then? I thought you would have said something first," she asked with a smile.

He looked up, shocked, and glanced around the library to see who else was listening.

"Dyo – Do you want to be done?" he asked tentatively.

She gazed off into space for a bit then, considering, and he didn't rush her. He still didn't really understand what went on in her mind, but he knew enough to let her be when she was thinking.

"Well, it was good fun, but you seem to be enjoying yourself less," she finally answered. "And I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something that I'm not, because I've felt all week like I was taking an exam that I hadn't studied for."

Neville blushed. "No, no, nothing like that. I just, was trying to sort out what was real and what was in my head."

"I suppose I should have done more research into relationships, and tried to figure out my own role instead of waiting for you to tell me," she commented dreamily. "But you were awfully prepared."

He laughed then, and Harry and Ginny's words clicked into place. Because as absurd as Luna's suggestion of doing research into her role sounded, that's what he'd done.

"We'll still be friends, though, Luna," he said seriously, after he'd caught his breath. "We've been through too much to not be friends, right?"

"Why on earth wouldn't we be?" she said with a smile.

He thought of Harry and Cho, of Ginny and Michael Corner, of Ron and Lavender. And then he decided that he was not Harry or Ginny or Ron, and he would do as he bloody well pleased.

"Why on earth not?" he replied.

Just then, Ginny came bursting into the library, making everyone in the room look up and Madam Pince glare a warning.

"They're blooming, Neville! Just like you said they would! Oh, come and see! Come on, you two!"

Neville's heart started pounding and he reached instinctively for… his herbology notebook. And then Luna patted him on the shoulder, and he looked her in the eyes and grinned as they raced after the agitated redhead. It wasn't awkward at all. They were, after all, friends for life.