Summer rain drummed on the roof of the Leaky Cauldron. The door swung wide, and the susurrus of sloshing puddles and a raincoat being removed drew Neville's gaze up from his smoky lapsang souchong.

There she was, forever five minutes early, his friend and erstwhile lover, Luna Lovegood.

She beamed at him, shaking out her mustard yellow umbrella and casting a drying charm on her tie-dyed purple caftan. A riot of color in the grey London gloom.

He stood up, and his Wellington boots squeaked.

"Hello," she said, advancing with her typically languid, face-first gait.

"Hi," he said. He pulled her into a one-armed hug. "Missed you."

"Happy birthday."

"Thanks."

He released her. She was thinner and more windburned than she had been the last time he'd seen her. But she often returned somewhat worse for wear from her naturalist's excursions into the wild. And perhaps living above a tavern had developed in him an impulse to worry a little about everyone. So many nights listening to the most unlikely people spin their tales of woe, and occasionally calling the Knight Bus for wizards too soused to Apparate or Floo home.

She tilted her head quizzically. "Hannah's pregnant, then," she said.

He spluttered, then laughed. "How on earth do you know that?"

"Just your expression. You look like Harry did before James was born. And your eyes are all shiny, like new sickles."

"Yeah. She is. Blimey, Luna, not even her friends know yet. Honestly, you could teach Divination."

"Oh, I don't divine. I just observe. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

She stowed her wand in her pocket. "Have you thought of names yet?"

"Nah, it's only been two months. I think the creative spirit will move us at some point. Come. Sit. Want a sandwich?"

She shook her head. "I try not to eat too much food before long-distance apparition. It tends to re-emerge onto one's traveling companions."

"Suppose it does, yeah."

He remembered a little about that from his Auror days.

He scooted down the leather-backed booth and she climbed in next to him, tucking her dragon-hide boots under her folded legs. Luna rarely put her feet on the floor. She was always above it – perching, floating, flying.

"I thought I saw a kappa outside Flourish and Blott's. They like puddles. But we're a bit too far west, I think," she said.

"We had one at Hogwarts last year. New Defense professor brought one in."

"How lovely. Did you offer it a cucumber?"

"Not personally, no. Is that what you're supposed to do with kappas?"

"That is Scamander's recommendation. The elder Scamander, I mean. I'm not sure of Rolf's opinion on the matter. I'll have to ask him when we get to the States."

Neville swirled his tea leaves in the centimeter of liquid that remained. They swayed like river grass. "That where you're headed next?"

"Yes. I'll be very interested to see what he's like in person. I've never actually met Rolf. Though we've been pen pals since I was thirteen."

Her silvery eyes seemed miles away, but whether she was melancholy or happy or just thinking abstractly, Neville could not say. Luna remained in some ways an enigma to him, even though he knew her as well as anybody probably could.

"Lu, sure you don't want anything? Butterbeer, even?"

"Oh, yes, that would be nice. I think I'll be safe with that."

Neville waggled an arm at the new barman, with whom he had developed a kind of shorthand. A pair of beers arrived a moment later, sweating condensation.

"Shall we get on with it?" he asked.

"Indeed, let's," she said, producing a large, lumpen drawstring bag from beneath her robes.

Neville reached across the table and dragged forth a tacklebox with a magical lock on the front. He keyed it open with his wand and took out a dried, knotty fungus the size of a fist.

"Do not tell Hermione I gave you this," he said. "It's a Class C non-tradable."

She turned it around in her hand. "Hmm. Much knobblier than in pictures, isn't it? Here's mine."

She pushed a corked, galleon-sized vial toward him. He popped it open and Accio'd the contents – almond-sized seeds that rattled and vibrated on the oak table top.

"Brilliant," he said. "Think I'll put them in greenhouse four. Can't get these in Britain anymore."

"They are rather lethal," she said. She sipped her beer, blinking slowly, dreamily.

He leaned back against the booth, propping up one knee and resting his elbow on it. "What're you hunting in the States? Jobberknolls? Chupacabra?"

"Jackalopes," she said, "in the southwest."

"Oh, can you bring me some Croton capitatus? Hogwort, that is. For sentimental reasons."

"I will keep an eye out."

"Appreciate it. Furry little plant. Silver leaves. You'll know it when you see it."

A serene smile blossomed across her lips and crinkled the corners of her eyes. "You look your age now, Neville. In the best possible way. You look more like you. You'll be a lovely father."

"Thanks, Lu."

The door opened again, and as the black umbrella descended, Neville laid eyes on Teddy Lupin, who was sixteen and looked it, with his skinny jeans and wrists ringed in a dozen paper concert bracelets of neon hues. He strongly resembled his father. Once in a while, Neville had the distinct impression that he was looking at a very young, very hipster Professor Lupin. Teddy had the same straight nose and the same haunted eyes.

Teddy glided over to them, iPod buds still jammed into his ears, green rucksack slung over one shoulder.

Neville covered his face casually with his hand and whispered one word to Luna. "Victoire."

"Yes, I thought so," she said quietly.

Teddy's painful crush on his godfather's niece had been obvious to everyone for the last year.

Teddy took out his ear buds. "Wotcher," he said, in a voice barely above a whisper. For a kid with blue hair, he was surprisingly soft-spoken.

"Hullo, Ted."

"Hi, Professor. Hi, Luna."

Teddy allowed Luna to pat him on the arm as he slumped into the booth beside her. Neville stowed the rattling seeds in the tacklebox; it would be unwise to parade contraband in front of a student. Even one as perennially low-key as the one sitting before him.

"Gran told me to pack a jumper, but I told her it's going to be too hot," said Teddy. "It's the desert."

Neville felt very much in sympathy with Teddy. Neville knew what it was like to be a teenager raised by your grandmother, always a little out of sync with your peers, feeling both older and younger than everyone at the same time. Only a boy like this would show up to the first day of school with a toad, that uncoolest and most passé of pets. Perhaps there was something to what Luna had just said – that he finally looked his age.

"Want to send an owl," said Teddy. "Be right back."

Neville waited for the boy to walk out of earshot before saying, "Nothing like being sixteen with a horrible crush, is there?"

Luna looked pensive. "There are some things like it. The bite of the venomous Tahitian trumpet snail, for example, produces powerful feelings not unlike unrequited love."

Neville grinned at her. He was long past finding her comical, or odd. He grinned because she was Luna, and because she didn't give a damn what anyone thought of her, and because he loved her for that and a million other reasons.

"Do you ever wish things had worked out? With you and me?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It wouldn't have. You garden. You have to stay in one place. Whereas I can't stay in one place. You know that expression, about the fish who loves a bird. Besides, you love Hannah, and you are both extremely happy. No, I regret nothing, Neville. Why, do you?"

He toyed with his tea spoon. "No, I guess not. It was fun, though."

"You mean that summer when we had sex every day for two months."

He blushed. "Yeah. That."

"I agree. It was most edifying. That time in the hammock in particular."

"Merlin. I forgot about that." He laughed. "Depraved."

She finished her beer, nonplussed.

"Well, it's good of you to take Teddy along. He could use a change of scenery," said Neville.

"Yes. He likes interesting creatures. Family trait, I think."

Teddy returned, shoulders pitched forward in the universal posture of adolescent ennui. "It's half-past. Don't we have to be there at three?" he asked.

"Yes," said Luna. "Best not to be late. I'll see you later, Neville."

"Same time next month?" asked Neville.

"If our expedition is successful, yes, we should be back by then. I'll write to you." She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "Tell Hannah I said congratulations."

"I will."

She beamed again.

Neville watched them leave – the eccentric blonde explorer and the brooding teenage boy. They opened their umbrellas into the grey, slanting drizzle. The wooden door swung closed behind them.

He wondered what sort of adventure they were in for, and what fruits the summer would bear.