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Luna Lovegood walks into the bar with her nose buried in Beyond Basilisks: The Hidden World of Experimental Breeding.

She seems only vaguely aware that she has stepped from Hogwarts into Milliways. Her attention is on her book. And on the faint rustling sound that has been following her since the end of her Transfiguration class. Clearly, she thinks, her ear for detecting nargles is improving.

In actuality, the rustling can be attributed to the sign stuck to the back of her robe – a piece of parchment with LOONY LOVEGOOD in purple and puce.

It's fairly lurid. And flashing.

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"Dueling...that would be an even worse idea." He can't picture her with a sword. Or a pistol. Maybe it would be like that scene in the kiddie film with Merlin and the witch?

Dueling for wizards is not quite so sharp and pointy, but it might be less dangerous if they did use swords sometimes.

"I would have to practice," Luna says. "And it's the sort of thing that's difficult to practice alone."

Therefore, she likely won't be practicing it any time soon.

"So let's say no to duels then?"

Luna smiles and nods.

"No dueling. I believe that's a promise I can keep."

She gives him a curious look.

"Did you never fight when you were in school?"

Boys, it seems, are far more inclined toward fisticuffs. Or exchanging hexes.

"You mean before the accident? Yeah, sometimes. But I never had bully trouble. The advantage, I guess, of being the star on the football team." He doesn't feel guilty about this, but he also isn't comfortable that he was an exception.

"Ah. Yes, you must have been quite popular, then."

Football players, from what Luna knows, are a lot like Quidditch players. Of course, her mental image of football is the British version, but it still applies.

"People weren't nice to you after, though?"

"I didn't give them the chance. I was a monster. Or that's what I thought. I dropped out and hid in my old apartment. Went out only when I had to. That way, no one could make fun of me.

"It wasn't the best way to go about things." He wishes he'd been brave from the first.

Luna would seem to agree with this. She looks fairly disapproving.

"You shouldn't have done that. If you had so many friends, I'm sure they were worried about you."

Luna can't imagine herself in a similar scenario, but she thinks if she had a friend who was in an accident, she'd miss them if they disappeared.

"That's the funny thing. I thought I had a lot of friends. I didn't. I'm better off now that I ever was as a football star." Did they ever like him for anything but his skills?

"Do you have friends now?"

She hopes so. Friends are good to have.

"The Titans, both the ones in my team and the ones in Steel City. And some people here. Enzo, a few others."

"There certainly are plenty of people here."

It seems like it would be an easy place to make friends.

"I'm sorry your friends from school treated you that way, though."

"Thanks. But it's better now. A lot better.

"I am happy." He's found what he wants from life. Who could ask for more?

"Things tend to work like that. They come right in the end."

It's a truth that Luna reminds herself of often.

"I hope so. But the end is a long way off for us." At least he hopes that as well.

"Maybe."

There's never any telling, really.

"But it often seems like life is a whole lot of beginnings and ends. That's how it seems to me sometimes, anyway."

"That's kinda profound. Especially for someone your age." He's not sure of her age, but she's clearly a bit younger than he is.

"It just seems like sense."

Luna doesn't feel terribly profound.

"Things are always starting and stopping all through life."

School years. Homes. Relationships. People themselves.

"Yeah. And the trick is to start when you can."

"I feel like there's a lot I haven't started yet."

"Me too, actually. I got a whole life ahead of me." And really no plans other than saving the world.

"Me too." Long or short. "I'm thirteen. Fourteen in February. So if nothing bad or unexpected happens, I should have quite a long one."

Of course Luna knows, better perhaps than some of her peers, that bad and unexpected things can happen.

"How do you decide where to start?"

Some things are easy. School years start and end on a schedule. Not everything is quite so predictable.

He thought she was bit older. Too bad. She's cute. But he's way too old for her. 18!

"You know, I'm still not sure. Some days, I just go and do stuff. Some days...some days I wonder if I should go to college or try to get a job or do more solo work."

Practically a lifetime in teen years.

"Would any of those things make you especially happy?"

One probably can't use it as the only criteria. But it would be a good place to start.

"I don't think so. But I've been a Titan for a couple of years now, and I figure sooner or later, we all have to try something new.

"Then again, why mess with success?" He wonders if the other Titans have the same questions.