Ending the Season of Snows and Sins
Challenge Eighteen: March Madness Redux
Title: Ending the Season of Snows and Sins
Author: moonblossom55
Wizard/Witch: Terence Higgs/Luna Lovegood
Rating/Warnings: G/PG
Genre: Romance/Drama
Word count: Exactly 500
Prompt: 26. a spring poem
Summary: When Luna finds Terence's Death Eater's mask, the last thing he expected was forgiveness, but then with Luna he should have expected the unexpected.
Searching for Luna, Terence Higgs peered out the window into the garden. She was lifting out of her pocket the two green stones his cousin Rabastan had left him. Humming, she dug a hole using what seemed to be a curved white spade without a handle. In the light of morning, her make-shift tool shone like bone, and when he recognised what she used, his stomach gave a lurch.
His mask.
His sweating, shaking hand slipped on the doorknob. Finally, he flung the door open with an unspoken Alohomora. She didn’t look up when his shadow fell over her, but placed the first stone in the hole, then crooned over it, the atonal harmonies jarring him to the bone, the incantation sending a shiver down him.
“For winter’s rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins.”
“Luna…”
“Don’t worry. I think besides implementing the Soul-Healing Charm, this will keep the Blibbering Humdingers away that kept you from talking about what happened during the war. Clever of you really to put the mask where I’d find it, so I could break the spell.”
He dropped to his knees. “Luna, I...”
Luna tilted her head and smiled. “But that’s why you pursued me, isn’t it? You were one of my guards, weren't you? In Malfoy Manor. The one who gave me the extra food?”
He nodded slowly. He’d recognised her when she’d come to interview the Falmouth Falcons where he was a Seeker, whilst she couldn’t recognise him because whenever he’d brought her things down in that dungeon, he’d worn the mask. Strange, really, they’d had the government, they’d had Hogwarts, but they still had often gone masked, and he’d felt grateful to hide behind it. He’d never felt less powerful then when he’d had it on, yet after war’s end he couldn’t make himself discard it, even though…
“Would you like to do the other one,” Luna asked, offering him the other stone.
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes and looked at him as if he were the densest of creatures. “To plant an elder tree.” She took his hand. “You bury things, and if we do it together in the light of day, good things will grow.”
“Nothing could, it’s dead…” But he stopped mid-sentence to stare at her serene face. Looney Lovegood. When he’d told his younger brother who he was seeing, Platus had laughed uproariously. No one took Luna seriously. Even when he’d accompanied her to see her puffed-up Gryffindor friends, their sly looks at each other, twitchy smiles, hands in front of mouths told him exactly how seriously they took her, and still she looked at him like…
He looked down at the jade-coloured stone, which seemed to glow from within, swallowed hard, and then placed it beside its twin, then tamped down the earth. He let the fresh earth run over his fingers, closed his eyes when he heard the tweet of a robin.
Spring, it was a blessing. Just like her.
Author's Notes: Luna is quoting Algernon Charles Swinburne’s “Atalanta in Calydon.”
Proof-reader: Rose Mary