Yeah, Luna never really felt like Luna in this. She's still quirky but beyond being Neville's girlfriend and the occasional oddity there's no real development of her. Which is odd considering her conversation with Harry in Oot P. Luna is a very deep character and the story, despite everything else it does right, only scratches the surface of her.
Uh huh. The problem I have with Luna in this fic is that while she has some great moments here and there, 75% of her dialogue and actions are either partially or wholly based around her being in love with Neville. She talks about Neville, she flirts with Neville, she constantly hangs around Neville, or she mopes around and goes into depression because Neville isn't there. She's not really Luna Lovegood, she's Luna Love-Interest, who doesn't seem to have much purpose, or much of a life, outside her relationship with Neville.
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The Granddaddy Of All Harry Potter Peggy Sue Fics
While there may have been Peggy Sue fics for Harry Potter before Nightmares of Futures Past, it was this fic that popularized and made them such a major genre in HP fandom. It's become the standard against which all Harry Potter Peggy Sue fics are judged — and with good reason.
The story is not without its flaws. It often gets too long-winded, and some characters, like Dumbledore and Snape, get a bit of a Straw Man treatment and are mostly held up as negative contrasts to Harry (though in the case of Dumbledore there's at least an effort to show that he means well). Harry constantly verges on overpowered, even though the fic does a good job of throwing obstacles in his way, but his main problem is that he like so many other "wise-beyond-their-years" characters becomes annoyingly overbearing and off-putting. Later chapters slip more and more into "here's why this character is wrong." It's great to see Neville standing up to his grandmother, but it's overkill when he puts on this holier-than-thou attitude and lapses into a The Reason You Suck Speech while she's unable to make any coherent counterarguments — does that even sound remotely like the Neville and Augusta Longbottom we know and love?
Speaking of Neville, it's nice to see him and Luna added "properly" to Harry's closest circle of friends... but frankly neither of them are as fun or loveable as in canon. Neville is a completely different character from his canon self, and while Luna's more recognizable she's far too often in the story reduced to "Neville's love interest." She gets to occasionally display some wackiness or strange wisdom, but the majority of her role seems to revolve around being in love with Neville. I don't usually mind the Neville/Luna pairing, but I don't think it works here.
All my complaints aside, the fic does more things right than it does wrong. The dialogue and overall writing style is good, some of the twists and ideas are brilliant, and the author manages to insert a lot of emotion in the story. It is one of the better Peggy Sue fics out there; certainly far above most of its imitators.