Who does Luna Lovegood marry in the Harry Potter universe?

Because the Harry Potter book series is written primarily from Harry's point of view, many minor characters are given extremely little time to make a proper impact. Especially in the early books where the author tried to keep the pace light and breezy, rereading you'd be surprised at how little material we have for fan favorite characters like Neville, McGonagall, the Weasley twins, etc. The focus is almost always on the main trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, with everyone else just popping in here and there. Even Dumbledore, who is such a huge presence throughout the series, only speaks to Harry about once in two hundred pages. In fact, the two barely speak at all in Prisoner of Azkaban. (Hermione actually spends more time with him than Harry does in the movie.)

Luna Lovegood is one of the many characters that outlives her page count. She appears out of nowhere in Order of the Phoenix and is absent from much of The Deathly Hallows, but her sheer power of weirdness has made her a top ten character for many readers and viewers. It helps that she's the series' first in-depth introduction to the House of Ravenclaw, and her reserved airiness means she's refreshingly lacking in relationship drama compared to the other teenage characters.

The result is that 17 years after the last book ended, many fans are still invested in what happens to Luna after the Battle of Hogwarts. We have no doubt she'll be successful in life, perhaps as Hogwarts' new divination professor, but who would she marry? Many fans wanted her to end up with Neville, and many other fans wanted her to end up with Harry. But assuming that J.K. Rowling can believe, Luna's husband is someone no reader of the books could have predicted. Like Rowling explained in a 2007 interview:

“Luna became a very famous naturalist, discovering and classifying many new species of animals (though unfortunately she never found the wrinkled horn snorkel and eventually had to assume that her father could have invented it)... She married (rather later than Harry and co) a naturalist and grandson of the great Newt Scamander (Rolf).

The image above is not Rolf (who does not appear in any of the films), but his grandfather Newt Skander, who you can see “Fantastic Beasts” in the movies.

Is Rowling's explanation canon? I'd say it's as canonical as the events of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – by which I mean it's entirely up to you, regardless of what Rowling says outside of the text. But if you accept Rowling's answer, you're probably wondering who Rolf is. After all, he's not in the books. With everyone else in the main trio marrying their high school sweethearts, who does this quirky outsider Luna end up settling down with?

There isn't much information for fans to work with here. Rolf is just mentioned in an early draft of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows rather than the published version, although he was apparently important enough in Rowling's mind that she kept Luna actress Evanna Lynch informed about him while writing the book. What would Rolf have done if included in the final novel? It is reported that he would have been the one who told the main trio about A tale of three brothersnot Xenophilius Lovegood.

In 2014, Potter-themed website Pottermore included a Daily Prophet article writes lovable sleazeball journalist Rita Skeeter, describing Rolf as “the grandson of the famous magizoologist Newt” and noting that he and Luna shared twins. (The children were named Lorcan and Lysander, which sounds exactly like Luna's children.) Rolf seems to be the more “normal” half of the couple, though he still shares Luna's love of learning about strange and unfamiliar magical creatures. Both seem like a good fit based on the few details we have to work with.

While the book Luna ends with Rolf, the movies end with the slightly disturbing hint that Luna might end up marrying Neville Longbottom. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” doesn't go into much detail, of course — all the characters are very busy fighting the Dark Lord and others — but Neville briefly mentions how he's “angry with her,” and wants to tell her, how it feels before one of them is potentially killed in battle. After the fight is over, there is a short clip of the two sitting side by side on the stairs.

I think it's cute, even though there's no indication that the two are interested in each other in any of these previous movies. The writers seem to want to give Luna a memorable note because the book doesn't give her any big character moments like with Neville. Worse, it seems like the writers just paired Neville with the only major female character they could think of who didn't already have a boyfriend.

If you buy into the theory that the Neville/Luna movie was a permanent thing, perhaps the biggest problem with pairing these two up is that it makes the wizarding world feel too small. With so many of the main characters marrying their high school sweethearts, it feels like Hogwarts is the only thing here, and none of these characters have any meaningful experiences outside of school.

The good news, at least for the Neville/Luna haters, is that Evanna Lynch doesn't think the two are a long-term goal. “Luna wants to go out and explore the world and different creatures, and I think she wants to have several different relationships and not be forever,” she said in an interview in 2016. “Neville would like a good, solid wife who cooks and that's not him.”

Luna's post-Hogwarts life is a bit of a disappointment to some Harry Potter fans, who would have liked Luna to end up with Harry. It may seem like an odd pairing to some, especially since Harry often cringes at Luna's strange behavior in the books, but few Potterheads are so invested in the ship that they'll write 70,000+ word fiction don't care about that.

The point of Luna/Harry's delivery is that they both have personalities that contrast in a fun and compelling way. Harry is a straight guy who just wants to feel normal and accepted by his peers, while Luna is an eccentric hippie who doesn't care what others think of her. Both could learn a bit from each other; Just as Ron and Hermione's contrasting personalities complement each other perfectly, some fans claim that the extremes of Harry and Luna's personalities could balance each other out in a serious romance.

Of course, the main reason Luna/Harry is sent so often is because the canon ship Ginny and Harry is considered so weak. Especially in movies, Ginny as a love interest gives the fans nothing to work with: there is no chemistry between the actors, and their entire plot feels tied to a group of films that are more than complicated enough. Book Ginny is a little better because he has a lot more time to make a lasting impression on readers, but she still lacks the character spark that Luna had from day one. Luna is effortlessly likable and cool, whereas the books seem to try to convince us that Ginny is cool, with mixed results. Ginny and Harry may be great, but in the hearts of some fans, Luna and Harry are the perfect couple.