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The smell of the house was overpowering, but Neville knew that he had to get over whatever the smell was so that he could talk to Luna about everything that had happened in the last few days. He knew that she was perhaps the only person that would listen to him without casting any sort of judgement about Pansy and the whole marriage thing. He wanted to talk to Hermione about it, but he knew that she would be far too sceptical about whether or not he was just setting himself up to get his heart broken.
No matter what he couldn't make himself believe that. He knew his Pansy and he knew that she wouldn't have dared to tell him about her feelings for him if she didn't think that this could work. As out of control as she often seemed to be, Pansy didn't usually do things without properly thinking them through.
"Neville." Luna almost sounded surprised to see Neville there in her house, but if she was then she hid it well, though really it was difficult to read Luna's emotions in the first place. "Hello."
"Hey." He said quietly, now feeling awkward for daring to turn up here and wondering if he should actually tell her about his new girlfriend - and his girlfriend's fiancé. He knew that Luna wouldn't be at all phases but that didn't mean that he could just come straight out with it. He still wanted to try, however. "Got time for a walk?" He asked as he looked down at the art project that she had been working on.
"Sure." Luna shot him a smile as she set down her paintbrush and took his hand into her own. Neville tried to ignore the fact that her hands were covered in paint as they headed back out of her house.
They walked in silence for a while, which helped Neville to collect his thoughts. He knew that Luna would have figured out that something was up but she wasn't the sort of person to force a conversation, which he was grateful for.
"Pansy and I got together yesterday." He managed to say after they'd been walking for a bit and he was sure that he could see the Burrow in the distance. He wasn't ready to tell any of its inhabitants, he knew that they wouldn't understand - and Ginny would be fuming.
"You two took your time." Luna mused, a soft smile playing across her lips and Neville realised that the blonde was perhaps the only person that had been rooting for the two of them. "I'm happy for you."
"Thanks, Luna." He said softly before he paused for a moment. "It's not entirely straightforward though." He added before he decided just to go for it. "Pansy's engaged to Theodore Nott. She's not cheating on him with me, they have an open relationship."
"I read about them in the paper." Luna mused, and that admission surprised him a little. He knew that there was no chance that Pansy had been featured in the Quibbler, which meant that Luna had been reading the competition. He decided not to bring that up as she said "I'm glad the three of you have managed to work something out. They both look miserable in the engagement photos."
Neville swallowed thickly at that. He knew that Pansy wasn't exactly pleased with her arranged marriage, but as she had pointed out to him a few times now, she had to do this for her parents and for Nott.
"They're working it out." He said quietly. "I - um - I didn't actually find out about their engagement until I went to their party. Next time I have to go to one of those stuffy events, I'm taking you with me."
Luna glanced sideways at him and Neville wondered if she was going to argue with him, but instead, there was a smile still on her lips and he realised that she would probably see this as a great experience and a chance to do a lot of people watching.
They fell into silence again, their route now having taken a turn back towards her house. Neville considered bailing out there and then. He wanted to spend some more time with her, but he didn't think that he could do that if she continued to burn whatever incense sticks she had been. They always seemed to give him a headache, and he didn't think that he could handle having a headache on top of worrying what was next in his life.
He couldn't find a decent excuse to get out of going inside for a cup of tea when she offered him one, however, so that was how he found himself sitting in her kitchen, as close to the open window as he could get without arousing too much suspicion.
"So." Luna hummed as she set his mug down in front of him. "Did you lose her?"
Neville wasn't used to Luna being so forward so he ended up staring at her for an unseasonably long amount of time before he managed to form an answer that made any sort of sense. His first reaction was to yelp so he was glad that he had managed to stop that in its tracks.
"Uh. Yes. We kissed." He didn't know why he was so hesitant to admit it but he supposed that it could have had something to do with the fact that he wanted something to just be his and his alone. His friendship group was so close that they practically lived in each other's pockets. They tended to know absolutely everything that there was to know about each other and while it came in handy at times, it meant that there were no secrets between them. Neville didn't want there to be secrets, but he did want to be able to have things that were his and his alone - and one of those things was Pansy. "It was… unexpected." He said quietly, though he couldn't deny the small smile that crept onto his lips. He honestly couldn't believe that she was his and every time he reminded himself about it, he found that his heart was inadvertently skipping a beat.
"You seem happy though," Luna commented. Neville couldn't help but feel that there was something that she wasn't saying like perhaps she had noticed that he hadn't been happy for a while. He had done his best to hide his true emotions from everyone as best he could, but occasionally they ended up slipping through the cracks. It was almost impossible to be constantly switched on like that after all.
"I am," Neville said softly. He could finally be with the girl he had been in love with for half a decade. He knew that things weren't going to be easy or straightforward but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to be ecstatic about the fact that he could hold her in his arms and press kisses all over her face, and not just slip one in now and then and pretend that it was platonic. He didn't tend to kiss his other female friends, but Pansy hadn't noticed previously, or if she had then she hadn't said anything about it.
"You deserve to be," Luna told him as she reached across the table and gave his hand a small squeeze. Neville could have said the same thing about Luna, but then she always appeared to be happy no matter what happened to her in her life and so Neville was never sure when she wasn't happy and that worried him somewhat.
They fell into silence again as Neville let her words wash over him. He was happy and he was pretty sure that there was nothing on this earth that could take away that happiness - not even the fact that he was going to have to share his girl with Theodore Nott. He did want typo to know what exactly had been written in their contract, but he knew that it wasn't his place to ask. If she wanted him to know, then she would tell him, and he was sure that that would happen in time. He just had to give Pansy that time, which seemingly no-one else ever had.