Romance At Short Notice

Light met dark in a tangle of limbs on a four post bed conjured in the office of Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master. At least that is what the name plate said on the desk next to them. Luna Lovegood wasn't sure how it was possible that this man was actually the almost- universally feared Snape. Nargles must have infiltrated his brain. She wasn't about to complain. All she knew at this moment was the feeling of his heartbeat, knocking through his chest and into her breast.

"Are you certain, my love? You know that nothing real can come of this. Although it is going to take wild thestrals to drag me away. Drag me away they will."

"I just want to feel. Just give me this Severus. This is real. This is now." It came out like a whispered prayer.

"Very well. I wish it were different, but we have precious little time. I will ensure you are protected in every way I can. Although I cannot see why you are at all interested in a bitter, spiteful, unkind old man, I want you to know that these last few weeks have been the best of my life."

"You are not bitter, spiteful, unkind or old. You are infinitely kind, brave, courageous, loving, and wise. And when I look into your eyes, all I see is the man that has sacrificed everything for people he doesn't even know, who certainly do not appreciate him. Do you know that it was the day that you gave us 'detention' with Hagrid that I my suspicions about you were confirmed? Though if I were really honest, it goes back quite a bit further than that," his moon lady said dreamily.

"I had suspected. You knew me for what I was certainly at the beginning of this term, and I always held the faith you had in me in deepest regard. There were times when that knowledge is all that got me through a day when everything around me was torture and death."

"Take me away from all this death."

"I've asked you a thousand times in the last weeks if you would please go to safety. I can send you someplace where no one will be able to find you. Where you will be completely safe for years to come. Please, Luna, will you go?"

Luna shook her head.

"We haven't much time. You must promise me that you will do exactly as I say when the time comes, go into hiding. I need to do what I must do, and I cannot complete the tasks if I don't know that you will be safe. Please, Luna," it was his turn to offer a silent prayer to a God he wasn't certain he believed in any longer.

"We do have all night though, he won't summon you before dawn?"

"If we are lucky, and somehow, it never seems that I am."

"How long do you think we have before active war comes to Hogwarts?"

"No more than a fortnight, I expect, given the information I have been able to glean probably closer to two weeks."

"That's long enough."

"I'm afraid that it has to be enough. It is all I can give. I am sorry that even that time will be fractured and stolen moments. I should never asked you to come here. I can't do this to you. I won't do this to you. "

"If it were an hour, it would be are not doing anything to me," she whispered. "It is my decision, my choice. Do you really think I can turn my feelings off like a switch? I am afraid that you mustn't think very highly of me then."

"I think more of you than you can possibly imagine. I, well, what I am trying to say, is that I feel that. I can't say this."

"You don't have to tell me," she whispered, her dreamy voice husky, with an amused twinkle in her eye, that the man who placed his very life in danger, whose bravery no one could ever assail, once all was out in the open, was afraid to tell a girl he loved her. "Show me."

With that his lips covered hers. He kissed her slowly, but with desperation. He drank her in like she was a cool spring and he was stranded in the desert. She tugged at his shirt and untucked it from the waistband of his trousers. She began to unbutton as quickly as her nimble fingers would allow. He reached for his wand to remove them with a spell. He couldn't wait any longer.

"No, my love, let me do this. Let me see you centimeter by centimeter." She trailed kisses down his bare chest as she completed her task, pushing the shirt off his shoulders.

He caressed her bottom, and rose pulling her up with him. He bent down and kissed her stomach and then reached his hands under the material of her dress. He pushed the cotton to her chest and lifted it over her head. "I just want to look at you. I want to remember this when I can no longer see you before me. His eyes focused on the discolored skin at her collarbone. "Who did that to you? Which one of those buggering uncivilized imbeciles did this to you?" He was suddenly angrier than she had ever seen him."

"It hurts only a little. I am fine. I promise."

"That is the last time your lovely skin will be marred by a mark. If I could I would take every instant of pain away from you. No one will ever hurt you again, as long as there is breath in my body. As long as you let me protect you."

"It is so very slight. There are those that are much worse off than me. They don't want to spill too much pure blood."

"No one will ever do it again. I will make certain of it, my moon lady. Never. You will spend nights here whenever possible. If not, then with Madam Pomfrey."

"They will suspect something then. It will only make it worse. It is fine, my protector."

"I love you, Luna."

"And I you Severus."

"You are mine."

"I am yours."

And with that, Severus came the closest he ever imagined he would get to heaven.