Fic for loony4lupin
Author: miss_morland
Recipient: loony4lupin
Title: All Things Peculiar
Pairing: Snape/Luna
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1909
Summary: Sometimes we must do something we're not allowed to do. Snape knows what that means.
Author's Notes: loony4lupin, you asked for a Snape/Luna fic set during the war, and this is what my mind came up with. I hope you like it! Many thanks to my beta reader for her invaluable help.
Although Snape was never able to tell how it started, he could still point out when: a late night in early December, cold and rainy and ripe with ghosts.
*
The Ravenclaws should have known better than to create 'Support Harry Potter' flyers and glue them to the tower walls with a Sticking Charm. It was simple stuff, easy enough to get rid of, but Snape had to set an example. He was doing his job, after all. Besides, Potter's name was still enough to make his mouth twitch.
Filch had only been too happy to round up a few suspects. He would gladly have interrogated them himself, or possibly handed them over to Amycus or Alecto, but Snape had put an end to that. He did it himself.
Most likely, the culprits didn't know anything of importance. Most likely, they were only hotheaded young fools, blinded by naive faith in their precious Boy Who Lived. Still, Snape could not afford to take the risk - not even if it meant conducting absurd conversations in his office late at night.
"My patience is stretched," he said, eying the girl menacingly across his desk. "You have yet to explain what you were doing in the corridors after hours."
She only gazed at him.
"The corridors, Miss Lovegood," Snape snarled. "An explanation, if you'd be so kind."
"I thought I'd said so already," she said, sounding mildly bewildered. "There are Wrackspurts living in the walls there. Didn't you know?"
Snape gritted his teeth. "Are you making fun of me?"
"Oh, no!" The girl's face was a study of surprise mingled with indignation. "There's nothing funny about the Wrackspurts, Professor. They come out from the cracks in the walls after dark, and then they crawl into your brain." She nodded sagely. "I have read all about them."
For once, Snape found himself at a loss for words.
"It's important to cast a Repelling Charm before they get out for the night," she went on as he opened and closed his mouth. "I've told Professor Flitwick many times, but he never seems to listen, so I thought I'd do it myself..."
He only stared at her, at the long hair pouring down her back, at the pale face that somehow reminded him of an old-fashioned Muggle painting of a homeless girl he had seen once. Was she making up some sort of bizarre cover story? Was she audacious enough to think he'd fall for it? Was she, quite simply, insane?
"... but I wasn't trying to break the rules, just preventing the Wrackspurts from poisoning us! Sometimes we must do something we're not allowed to do. You know what that means, Professor." She gazed at him with her strange, unblinking eyes.
This remark caught Snape's attention. He pulled himself together. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you killed Dumbledore because he told you to." Her eyes, still unblinking, shone with something that almost resembled - if Snape had been younger and less shrewd, he would have called it admiration. "It must have been very difficult for you."
Snape's jaw dropped. She knew. Merlin's balls, she knew!
But how? There was nobody who could have told her - even Dumbledore wouldn't have been that mad, surely, and Potter himself had no clue...
As he sat there, feeling his face go pale, his hands go cold and his mouth go dry, it occurred to him that she must be silenced, and so must those who had told her.
He cleared his throat, forcing his voice to remain cold and controlled. "Who told you this?"
Lovegood smiled, her eyes round and earnest in the lamplight. "Why, the Nargles did, of course!"
She leaned forward, her smile growing conspiratorial. "They know everything, you'd be surprised to hear - "
"Enough!" Snape barked, resisting a strong urge to rub his forehead.
Obviously the girl was not in her right mind. It must have been blind luck that she had stumbled upon the truth. At any rate, he could deal with it tomorrow. "Fifty points from Ravenclaw. Now go to bed."
*
After she had left, he sat at his desk for a long time, staring silently in front of him.
"Not tired, Severus?"
Snape raised his eyes to Dumbledore's portrait, still awake in its frame. The sudden question did not exactly startle him - he was used to their nightly conversations - but he did find his thoughts disrupted. Shaking his head impatiently, he rose to his feet.
Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled as they had done when he was still alive, although Snape had no idea why. "Delightful girl, that Luna Lovegood."
With an annoyed bah, Snape started pacing.
"You still feel a little shaken by her statements, I take it?"
Snape laughed, mirthlessly. "You could say that."
"There's no need to worry," said Dumbledore. "She won't tell anyone."
"But how did she know?"
Dumbledore shrugged, still smiling. "I assume we have to ask the Nargles."
"Don't mock me," Snape hissed. "You've got no right to. It's all..."
He did not finish the sentence. They both knew there were several possible endings to it, all of them expressed already, many times, although most often in Snape's own mind: your fault. My fault. Hopeless. For a lost cause.
For her.
Dumbledore looked grave now, but his eyes were kind as he said, gently, "There is still a chance for you to taste happiness, Severus."
*
The next time he saw Luna Lovegood, she was in detention.
"You will come with me," Snape said curtly after having given his instructions. "You two - " he made a gesture - "will go together."
Although they both looked for a moment as if they were about to protest - the Weasley girl was shivering, and Longbottom's face was pale - they were wise enough not to argue. With one last long look, they turned and left.
"They're not afraid of the Forest, you know," Lovegood said matter-of-factly as she glanced after them. "Not really. They're afraid of you."
"They ought to be," Snape said dryly, starting to walk.
She followed, calm and relaxed, as if they were out for a pleasant picnic. "No, you see, they're afraid of what you are going to do to me. They think you hate us, since we're Harry's friends."
At least the girl was honest. Snape pulled out his wand, lighting it so that they could see the path in front of them. "And what do you think?"
"I told them it's all right, Professor." There was a smile on her lips, and a soft look in her large eyes. "I told them you like me."
He glanced at her, some part of him actually wanting to smile back. "Did you, now?"
"Yes." She nodded. "I'm strange, and few people want to be my friends. They think I'm odd. You know what that's like."
Another outrageous statement, so audacious it deserved a punishment all by itself. Yet Snape realised, to his surprise, that he wasn't angry. It took a lot of courage to say such things to his face - for one who wasn't surrounded by powerful friends, at any rate.
He looked at her again, at the pale face and the earnest gaze, and this time he did smile, but only slightly. "You presume a great deal, Miss Lovegood."
*
It took some time for him to fall asleep that night. When he woke up, he wasn't sure what he had been dreaming of, only that it was something pleasant, yet unfamiliar; and, for the first time in years, there had been no mocking laughter in his dreams.
The day after that, the Christmas hols began, and soon he received news from Malfoy Manor.
*
"You have come."
There was no surprise in her voice, only calm satisfaction. Snape nodded, glancing around the cell.
"Where is Ollivander?"
"He's being interrogated."
Strangely, the evenness of her voice almost made him shudder. "They do that from time to time," she informed him. "Are you supposed to interrogate me?"
Snape's lip curled. "More or less."
Gaining permission to spend some time with the Lovegood girl had offered no difficulties, although Bellatrix's leer nearly had made him turn his face away in disgust.
Snape wasn't certain what he wanted, however. He was fairly certain that she didn't know anything of importance, and that she wouldn't crack, anyway. There were several things to be said about Potter, but at least he seemed to inspire a certain amount of loyalty in his friends.
No, there was something else that had driven him here, something he wasn't sure he could admit to himself, even if he had wanted to. Perhaps it had something to do with curiosity, he told himself. He had always had a fascination for all things peculiar.
And was there anything more peculiar than this girl, standing there in the bleak cell, smiling at him as if she not only had known all along that he would come, but also been looking forward to it?
"You look tired," she said suddenly, taking a step closer to him. "I feel bad for you."
Here she was, incarcerated and mistreated, feeling bad for him... Snape closed his eyes, an unexpected weariness stinging behind his lids. "Don't."
"Why not?" she asked, in that same open, earnest fashion, like there was nothing to be ashamed of in the whole world. "We are both prisoners, aren't we?"
Snape paused; then nodded. "We are."
There was a silence.
"Do you know," she said then, "I've never been kissed." Her eyes, larger than ever, seemed to penetrate him; he could hardly look at her. "I may die tomorrow, and I've never been kissed."
"That's..." His throat seemed dry, all of a sudden. "That's a pity."
"Will you kiss me?"
The question ought to have shocked him; it didn't. The whole situation was unreal, otherworldly. It was as though someone else was nodding for him, answering, "I will try."
It wasn't at all like what he had imagined, during all those nights, lying alone in his bed. It was clumsy, at first, and her breath smelled odd; yet, as their hands entwined and her mouth opened to his, an unfamiliar warmth filled him, and suddenly he was pressing her closer, not thinking at all.
When they broke apart, his breath was laboured, and her cheeks were pink, but she smiled, as gently as ever, and said, "Thank you."
Snape could not speak.
She took his hand. "That was really good," she told him as she traced patterns on his palm with her fingertips. "Have you kissed many girls in your life?"
He drew his breath, shakingly. "Not one."
Her smile grew even brighter, but she didn't say anything, only kept caressing his hand.
"I'd like to see you again," she said after a while. Then she looked him in the eye, her smile gone. "But I don't think I will."
He almost laughed. "Did the Nargles tell you that, too?"
"No," she replied, her voice grave. "But I don't think we'll see each other again, ever - or not in this world, at least."
Snape closed his eyes again.
"Don't tell me more," he said quietly. "Your statements, bizarre as they may be, tend to be right."
When he left, he looked back; Luna stood there, silent and grave, her unblinking gaze following him as if she knew that it would come back to haunt him later.
Recipient: loony4lupin
Title: All Things Peculiar
Pairing: Snape/Luna
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1909
Summary: Sometimes we must do something we're not allowed to do. Snape knows what that means.
Author's Notes: loony4lupin, you asked for a Snape/Luna fic set during the war, and this is what my mind came up with. I hope you like it! Many thanks to my beta reader for her invaluable help.
Although Snape was never able to tell how it started, he could still point out when: a late night in early December, cold and rainy and ripe with ghosts.
*
The Ravenclaws should have known better than to create 'Support Harry Potter' flyers and glue them to the tower walls with a Sticking Charm. It was simple stuff, easy enough to get rid of, but Snape had to set an example. He was doing his job, after all. Besides, Potter's name was still enough to make his mouth twitch.
Filch had only been too happy to round up a few suspects. He would gladly have interrogated them himself, or possibly handed them over to Amycus or Alecto, but Snape had put an end to that. He did it himself.
Most likely, the culprits didn't know anything of importance. Most likely, they were only hotheaded young fools, blinded by naive faith in their precious Boy Who Lived. Still, Snape could not afford to take the risk - not even if it meant conducting absurd conversations in his office late at night.
"My patience is stretched," he said, eying the girl menacingly across his desk. "You have yet to explain what you were doing in the corridors after hours."
She only gazed at him.
"The corridors, Miss Lovegood," Snape snarled. "An explanation, if you'd be so kind."
"I thought I'd said so already," she said, sounding mildly bewildered. "There are Wrackspurts living in the walls there. Didn't you know?"
Snape gritted his teeth. "Are you making fun of me?"
"Oh, no!" The girl's face was a study of surprise mingled with indignation. "There's nothing funny about the Wrackspurts, Professor. They come out from the cracks in the walls after dark, and then they crawl into your brain." She nodded sagely. "I have read all about them."
For once, Snape found himself at a loss for words.
"It's important to cast a Repelling Charm before they get out for the night," she went on as he opened and closed his mouth. "I've told Professor Flitwick many times, but he never seems to listen, so I thought I'd do it myself..."
He only stared at her, at the long hair pouring down her back, at the pale face that somehow reminded him of an old-fashioned Muggle painting of a homeless girl he had seen once. Was she making up some sort of bizarre cover story? Was she audacious enough to think he'd fall for it? Was she, quite simply, insane?
"... but I wasn't trying to break the rules, just preventing the Wrackspurts from poisoning us! Sometimes we must do something we're not allowed to do. You know what that means, Professor." She gazed at him with her strange, unblinking eyes.
This remark caught Snape's attention. He pulled himself together. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, you killed Dumbledore because he told you to." Her eyes, still unblinking, shone with something that almost resembled - if Snape had been younger and less shrewd, he would have called it admiration. "It must have been very difficult for you."
Snape's jaw dropped. She knew. Merlin's balls, she knew!
But how? There was nobody who could have told her - even Dumbledore wouldn't have been that mad, surely, and Potter himself had no clue...
As he sat there, feeling his face go pale, his hands go cold and his mouth go dry, it occurred to him that she must be silenced, and so must those who had told her.
He cleared his throat, forcing his voice to remain cold and controlled. "Who told you this?"
Lovegood smiled, her eyes round and earnest in the lamplight. "Why, the Nargles did, of course!"
She leaned forward, her smile growing conspiratorial. "They know everything, you'd be surprised to hear - "
"Enough!" Snape barked, resisting a strong urge to rub his forehead.
Obviously the girl was not in her right mind. It must have been blind luck that she had stumbled upon the truth. At any rate, he could deal with it tomorrow. "Fifty points from Ravenclaw. Now go to bed."
*
After she had left, he sat at his desk for a long time, staring silently in front of him.
"Not tired, Severus?"
Snape raised his eyes to Dumbledore's portrait, still awake in its frame. The sudden question did not exactly startle him - he was used to their nightly conversations - but he did find his thoughts disrupted. Shaking his head impatiently, he rose to his feet.
Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled as they had done when he was still alive, although Snape had no idea why. "Delightful girl, that Luna Lovegood."
With an annoyed bah, Snape started pacing.
"You still feel a little shaken by her statements, I take it?"
Snape laughed, mirthlessly. "You could say that."
"There's no need to worry," said Dumbledore. "She won't tell anyone."
"But how did she know?"
Dumbledore shrugged, still smiling. "I assume we have to ask the Nargles."
"Don't mock me," Snape hissed. "You've got no right to. It's all..."
He did not finish the sentence. They both knew there were several possible endings to it, all of them expressed already, many times, although most often in Snape's own mind: your fault. My fault. Hopeless. For a lost cause.
For her.
Dumbledore looked grave now, but his eyes were kind as he said, gently, "There is still a chance for you to taste happiness, Severus."
*
The next time he saw Luna Lovegood, she was in detention.
"You will come with me," Snape said curtly after having given his instructions. "You two - " he made a gesture - "will go together."
Although they both looked for a moment as if they were about to protest - the Weasley girl was shivering, and Longbottom's face was pale - they were wise enough not to argue. With one last long look, they turned and left.
"They're not afraid of the Forest, you know," Lovegood said matter-of-factly as she glanced after them. "Not really. They're afraid of you."
"They ought to be," Snape said dryly, starting to walk.
She followed, calm and relaxed, as if they were out for a pleasant picnic. "No, you see, they're afraid of what you are going to do to me. They think you hate us, since we're Harry's friends."
At least the girl was honest. Snape pulled out his wand, lighting it so that they could see the path in front of them. "And what do you think?"
"I told them it's all right, Professor." There was a smile on her lips, and a soft look in her large eyes. "I told them you like me."
He glanced at her, some part of him actually wanting to smile back. "Did you, now?"
"Yes." She nodded. "I'm strange, and few people want to be my friends. They think I'm odd. You know what that's like."
Another outrageous statement, so audacious it deserved a punishment all by itself. Yet Snape realised, to his surprise, that he wasn't angry. It took a lot of courage to say such things to his face - for one who wasn't surrounded by powerful friends, at any rate.
He looked at her again, at the pale face and the earnest gaze, and this time he did smile, but only slightly. "You presume a great deal, Miss Lovegood."
*
It took some time for him to fall asleep that night. When he woke up, he wasn't sure what he had been dreaming of, only that it was something pleasant, yet unfamiliar; and, for the first time in years, there had been no mocking laughter in his dreams.
The day after that, the Christmas hols began, and soon he received news from Malfoy Manor.
*
"You have come."
There was no surprise in her voice, only calm satisfaction. Snape nodded, glancing around the cell.
"Where is Ollivander?"
"He's being interrogated."
Strangely, the evenness of her voice almost made him shudder. "They do that from time to time," she informed him. "Are you supposed to interrogate me?"
Snape's lip curled. "More or less."
Gaining permission to spend some time with the Lovegood girl had offered no difficulties, although Bellatrix's leer nearly had made him turn his face away in disgust.
Snape wasn't certain what he wanted, however. He was fairly certain that she didn't know anything of importance, and that she wouldn't crack, anyway. There were several things to be said about Potter, but at least he seemed to inspire a certain amount of loyalty in his friends.
No, there was something else that had driven him here, something he wasn't sure he could admit to himself, even if he had wanted to. Perhaps it had something to do with curiosity, he told himself. He had always had a fascination for all things peculiar.
And was there anything more peculiar than this girl, standing there in the bleak cell, smiling at him as if she not only had known all along that he would come, but also been looking forward to it?
"You look tired," she said suddenly, taking a step closer to him. "I feel bad for you."
Here she was, incarcerated and mistreated, feeling bad for him... Snape closed his eyes, an unexpected weariness stinging behind his lids. "Don't."
"Why not?" she asked, in that same open, earnest fashion, like there was nothing to be ashamed of in the whole world. "We are both prisoners, aren't we?"
Snape paused; then nodded. "We are."
There was a silence.
"Do you know," she said then, "I've never been kissed." Her eyes, larger than ever, seemed to penetrate him; he could hardly look at her. "I may die tomorrow, and I've never been kissed."
"That's..." His throat seemed dry, all of a sudden. "That's a pity."
"Will you kiss me?"
The question ought to have shocked him; it didn't. The whole situation was unreal, otherworldly. It was as though someone else was nodding for him, answering, "I will try."
It wasn't at all like what he had imagined, during all those nights, lying alone in his bed. It was clumsy, at first, and her breath smelled odd; yet, as their hands entwined and her mouth opened to his, an unfamiliar warmth filled him, and suddenly he was pressing her closer, not thinking at all.
When they broke apart, his breath was laboured, and her cheeks were pink, but she smiled, as gently as ever, and said, "Thank you."
Snape could not speak.
She took his hand. "That was really good," she told him as she traced patterns on his palm with her fingertips. "Have you kissed many girls in your life?"
He drew his breath, shakingly. "Not one."
Her smile grew even brighter, but she didn't say anything, only kept caressing his hand.
"I'd like to see you again," she said after a while. Then she looked him in the eye, her smile gone. "But I don't think I will."
He almost laughed. "Did the Nargles tell you that, too?"
"No," she replied, her voice grave. "But I don't think we'll see each other again, ever - or not in this world, at least."
Snape closed his eyes again.
"Don't tell me more," he said quietly. "Your statements, bizarre as they may be, tend to be right."
When he left, he looked back; Luna stood there, silent and grave, her unblinking gaze following him as if she knew that it would come back to haunt him later.